Maria Paula Carreño in Kill Your Father | Photo by Dahlia Katz
With a massive pink and purple sculpture asserting itself, Renato Baldin’s set is unabashedly channelling Georgia O’Keeffe; the colours and textures of his minimalist scenic design and costuming are declaratively vaginal. Their purpose isn’t erotic, nor even especially pleasant; no, they suggest bruised and bleeding orifices. Popping defiantly out against a sterile white backdrop, they will not be ignored.
One of the most distressing images here is of Medea pulling her child, a piece of raw meat, from a bright pink storage stool—a stylized womb. A deep maroon throw cascades at her feet—afterbirth. The juxtaposition of consumable muscle with the fur of an object designed for domestic comfort has a potent visceral impact.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Kill Your Father, presented by Expandido Arts Collective, is a contemporary take on the Medea myth. Based on Euripides’ classic tragedy, Grace Passô’s play seeks to “rewrite the narrative.” In their English adaptation, Marcio Beauclair and Matthew Romantini have honed it into a solo piece that draws direct references to current events. It opens with footage of Trump and Epstein news spots—projected directly onto our female heroine, right where her womb would be—exhibiting evidence that this world we’ve built isn’t just unkind to women, it’s been purposely structured at their expense.
Much like the sore, wounded aesthetic of Beauclair’s production, Medea herself will not be ignored. Urgently demanding our attention, Maria Paula Carreño performs this monologue as a breathy, emphatic call to action. She bounces jarringly between meditative reflection and shrill desperation, with little middle ground. This relentless dial jumping, from 3 to 11, is an abrasive theatrical tactic that is alienating at first, but eventually proves relatively persuasive. I qualify it because I didn’t feel this as profoundly as I was meant to. But again, I’m getting ahead of myself.
This Medea didn’t help her hubby get the golden fleece, but she did protect him from violent hate in her home village, picking his bleeding body up and carrying him to safety, eventually giving birth to two daughters to admire him and carry on his legacy. This Medea has been raped and betrayed and tries to find solace in exiled, fellow immigrant women in a new neighbourhood. She nurtures connections to Syrian and Cuban neighbours while maintaining a guarded awareness of the oppressive judgement of their American counterpart, who scowls and scoffs at their intimate bond.
Though I can understand what Medea—and, by extension: Passô, Beauclair, Romantini and Carreño—is trying to show me, so much of it felt histrionic. Though I greatly appreciate the operatic vibe, the text struck me as affected, especially several repeated passages. Rendering Passô’s adapted text, Carreño is dogged and scolding, borderline unhinged. I recognize that she is a formal representation of the oppressive expectations imposed on women—that they be titillating and physically available and supportive and strong and modest and accommodating. (America Ferrera’s monologue from Barbie rattles about at the back of my mind as a contemplate this.)
I can understand that she wants to put an end to patriarchal tyranny, that she is calling on us—the audience, her daughters—to stop the cycle of socially sanctioned abuse by killing our father. Because we can’t follow through, we love our father, she needs to find some other way to protect us from her fate. Kill Your Father posits Medea’s famous atrocity as a cogent last resort and, intellectually, I can follow the logic. But… I don’t feel it.
Is the fact that I don’t exist in a female body the cause of my detachment? There’s an argument to be made there, certainly, but I don’t think it’s that simple. I suspect the text itself might be more compelling to me in its original Portuguese, assuming I was intimately fluent in it. So many of the words, which I imagine were intended to be fiercely poetic, are flattened into rhetoric here. I can’t be sure, but I am very conscious of the limitations of translation.
Though I was never fully galvanized by Medea’s aching appeal to us, I absolutely understand the crucial relevance of the systemic ills it’s addressing. And artistically, the craft here is stunning. Brandon Gonçalves’ lighting is insightful and dynamic as it plays with evocatively hot and cool modes. Julián Henao’s operatic, eerie soundscape is simultaneously rich and unsettling, increasing dread and effectively foreshadowing the inevitable violence.
Damn, I really wish I knew Portuguese and could experience the original Mata Teu Pai. For the record, though, my appreciation for this production only increases with continued reflection.
Kill Your Father
March 19 to 29, 2026
Theatre Passe Muraille, Backspace
(16 Ryerson Avenue)
70 minutes
Maria Paula Carreño in Kill Your Father | Photo by Dahlia Katz