BACKSTAGE AT FRINGE with Bronte Lemarie | Medusa

In today's 'Backstage at Fringe', we spoke to Bronte Lemarie, Director of Medusa, which opens on October 14 at Explosives Factory as a part of our Fringe 2025 season.

She’s crass, she’s funny, and she’s ready to piss you off. Medusa feels like she’s on top of the world, she’d want you to know her name – but not like this. After a night of high tensioned festivities, where her responsibilities as high priestess leave her isolated and vulnerable, Poseidon, the very god she’s been flirting with all night, sexually assaults her. As Medusa battles with her trauma and becomes a danger to both herself and others, everyone must choose their next move carefully – though it seems deciding the right thing to do is far from easy. Monster. Martyr. Mortal. How will you remember her?

Q: Take us back to the start. When did this show first drop into your head? How did it get to where it is now?

A: I was thinking a lot about Greek myth retellings as they have indeed become pretty popular in the last decade or so from Achilles to Antigone, but I realised there isn’t an awful lot centering Medusa. I thought that was particularly strange considering how she’s one of the most iconic figures in myth as well as how she has had a recent revival in representing victims of sexual assault. So I thought hey, if no one else is doing it I’ll at least take a crack at it.

I wanted to veer away from what you’d expect in a retelling as well as what you’d expect in a story about sexual assault. I was far more interested in vulgar and messy characters than a down-the-line story. I had quite a few moments where I had to ask myself whether a scene or a character was going too far, but it was that urge I knew I had to fight against to actually depict how things are. I added quite a few more characters into the mix and ignored any I thought weren’t useful, and though I can’t say it’s the most myth-accurate retelling, it’s certainly a new one.

I was tinkering away at the script for a couple years before I became the artistic director of Four Letter Word Theatre where I was then given the opportunity—and the deadline—of getting the show going. It was first presented on the Union House stage which was daunting for my directorial debut to say the least and I had to later keep back the changes I wanted to make to the script for the sanity of my cast. Which means now that we’re doing it as part of the Fringe season I’ve had a bit more time to tune up some parts that weren’t quite working as desired. A lot of “wow that line never worked, huh.”

Q: What will audiences find in your show that they won't find anywhere else in fringe?

A: It’s one of the few full-length shows in the entire Fringe season, with a cast of 10 talented actors and a kickass production team. We have dazzling fight choreography (you won’t get hit by a flying spear, I swear) and abstract set pieces that break the confines of the stage. Every production element is working to its utmost limits with beautiful lighting and sound design and there’s even a little bit of queerness to get you through.

Medusa also refuses to pull its punches and will ask the ugly questions around sexual assault. What happens if your family member is the perpetrator? What happens if the victim bragged about getting with him? What happens if you hate the victim? Do you tell the kids? You won’t find these questions anywhere else.

I’m also not sure where else you’d find a 3 metre long ox puppet…

His name is Basil, in case you were wondering.

Q: What will surprise audiences about this work?

A: When it comes to stories about sexual assault, we’ve often come to to expect the same storyline:

A likeable and vulnerable woman is traumatised.

She reckons with her trauma but ultimately becomes stronger through her support group.

Her perpetrator is punished.

I didn’t care for any of these three things when writing the script. Sexual assault as it happens in the real world is rarely straight forward and is usually full of holes. Nothing can be proven easily and the victim wasn’t necessarily “perfect” or even that nice. Instead this retelling of Medusa is focused on the strained relationships that spawn after a sexual assault. People begin to hold two truths in their head or have very different ideas about the right thing to do.

The show centres the feminine very purposefully; mainstream movies, shows and theatre alike try their best to examine why boys get sucked into violent misogyny, and yes they are helpful in social discussion about young men, but what do they do to help the people they have hurt? ‘Medusa’ is both a retelling of the myth along with a retelling of the sexual assault storyline as we know it.

You're on a blind date. Nervously, you walk into the bar. Across the smoke and pool tables you see them - there they are. Your exact target audience member, personified. Can you describe them?

She’s probably ordered the cheapest drink the place has got and has somehow shaved even a few extra bucks off of it. Her makeup’s not quite symmetrical but you’ll only see if you stare too long and she’ll most certainly notice if you do. There are tattoos finding up her arms—probably a few stick-and-pokes from high school—but a few are actually well done, maybe some are even figures from Greek mythology. She’s certainly bisexual and definitely not over that weird queer situationship that never quite went anywhere, but if you ask about it she apparently can’t even remember her name. She probably hasn’t cried in a few months and sorely needs it, but it’s going to take a perfect storm. I like to think that late in the night I’ll find her scamming a guy for drinks.

Q: What has been the most memorable moment in your process to this point?

A: When I had made the script available for those interested in taking part in the show, I suddenly got an influx of messages from people letting me know they had binged through the entire script and had been left in tears. Some were on a plane which I can only imagine would have been awkward. I had never expected my writing, let alone my first go at writing a full-length script, to elicit such a strong reaction from people. I had so many people who I had varying levels of closeness with confide with me their own stories and experiences with sexual assault. So many said they had felt seen by the text which I was incredibly grateful for as I was terrified of alienating them because ‘Medusa’ is for those people in the first place.

‘Medusa’ has left such a profound impact on me from the script development to the staging, which have been punctuated by so many conversations about sexual assault that are usually difficult to bring up unprompted. I truly hope ‘Medusa’ can find itself into the hearts of the Fringe audience in the same way so I can eavesdrop on their conversations as they leave.

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Medusa plays at Explosives Factory from October 14-18. Stay tuned to the Theatre Works Backstage Blog, where we have loads more Backstage at Fringe content on the way!

Click here to get your tickets!