During the 12th edition of ‘Confrontations’ Mum Medea, a performance co-produced by Teatr Polski and the Festival, will be premiered. Next to Luke Perceval, Tom Lanoye is one of the best renowned theatre personages in Belgium, renowned for his new interpretations of the classics. The myth of Medea, a daughter of King of Colchis, is one of the most frequently performed pieces – there are over 300 documented ‘portraits’ of Medea in literature, painting and music. Tom Lanoye’s play is based on “Argonautics” by Apollonius from Rhodes and Euripides’ “Medea”. “Mum Medea” is both a play about the conflict of cultures and a contemporary family drama. Its first part is a laconic story about an encounter of young Medea and Jazon. Through the language his characters speak, Lanoye signals the problem pertaining to our preconceived ideas on civilization – the barbarian inhabitants of Colchis speak in verse whereas ‘the civilized Greeks’ speak simple, vulgar, everyday language, The clash of these two cultures refers to the world politics, the so-called “The Shadow Line’ of globalization, the lose of cultural identity and modern variants of colonization. The second part is a marriage tragedy in the tradition of “Who’s Afraid of Viriginia Woolf’. The incredible fight between Medea and Jazon leads to a tragic ending. The motif of a lack of understanding between different cultures is taken into another context.