The Bacchae was one of Euripides’ final and most enigmatic plays. In it, he readdressed many of his favorite themes including political sophistry, disillusionment with patriarchy, gender roles, and the tensions between religious faith and rationality. He employed comic routines, dramatic scenes and direct address disrupted by extensive song and dance. This dramatic structure may have been designed to both entertain and illuminate cultural contradictions. In this regard, he predated Bertolt Brecht by 2,500 years.
Our production imagines the Bacchae as a fanatically devout, upbeat, agit-prop religious singing group who travel the world sharing the transcendent and liberating joys of worshipping their god, Dionysus. It is influenced by research into events of the late 1960’s in the United States. At that time the country was rocked by various struggles for equal rights and the search for personal and social liberation in many forms. It was also rocked by acts of extreme violence. By the end of the decade, it had become clear that the Age of Aquarius, for all its promise of joy and understanding, contained a dark side. One manifestation of this was Charles Manson and the Manson family. Dionysus, like Manson, for all his benevolent trappings, had an appetite for raw power, adoration and revenge.
Our production explores how the core of a charismatic leader’s attraction and power may be their ability to “liberate” people to act without restraint in service of their faith.