'The Bacchae' Botches Dionysus

“The Bacchae” is one of Euripides’ most enduringly resonant tragedies, centered on the misfortunes of the house of Cadmus that flow from its denial of the god Dionysus. The Harvard-Radcliffe Dramatic Club’s rendition is an otherwise good production that is marred by one severe, baffling directorial error and one poor performance. The difficulties concomitant with modern stagings of Greek tragedies are manifold. Beyond the very critical problem of the lack of knowledge about Greek in the general public, there lies a host of other issues: the fact that no performance manuals or stage instructions exist from the classical period, the loss of the music and choreography that accompanied the plays, and the general darkness that enshrouds our understanding of the stage and scenery all compound the fact that most audiences are either overexposed to and bored with the subjects (witness Sophocles’ “Oedipus Rex”) or totally unfamiliar with them (witness Euripides’ “Iphigenia”).

In this production, directed by Anna A. Hagen ’15 and running through Saturday, such problems are largely minimized. “The Bacchae,” although it does not have a particularly well-known plot, at least has a well-known main character, the god Dionysus. David Greig’s generally elegant and faithful translation strikes a good balance between poetic expression and intelligibility. The minimalistic, Beckett-esque staging by set designer Larkin P. D. McCann ’15, supported by excellent lighting decisions on the part of light designers Anna G. Kelsey ’14 and Gabrielle M. Walti ’14, brings focus to the action and avoids all the thorny problems associated with complex scenery: a lone tree, four chairs, and a cluster of candles are the only representation given of the environs of Thebes. There are a few touches of directorial brilliance: during the lyric odes, the Bacchae, performers that represent the Greek chorus, perform stomp routines, choreographed by Mariel N. Pettee ’14, which is a superb method for capturing the spirit and energy of the lost choral dances of the Greek original. Their ritualistic wands are replaced symbolically by stiletto heels, an equally potent if more subtle sexual symbol in modern eyes. Blocking decisions are likewise elegant, maximizing the effectiveness of the choreography and preserving a balanced tension between characters during dialogue. In short, Hagen shows a masterful control over the physical aspects of the play.

This fact is marred by the clumsy decision to alter the content of the play itself, namely by changing Dionysus’ sex from male to female. This choice is, in itself, confusing: Euripides’ Dionysus is gender-bending enough in his original configuration—the play is fraught with frequent allusions to the god’s effeminate beauty, and the subtle, homoerotic tension between the god and the unbelieving Theban prince Pentheus is one of the sources from which the play derives much of its power. Indeed, having a woman play the androgynous male god would be a directorial coup; however, changing the character’s sex itself is unnecessary and confusing.

Nevertheless, something could perhaps have been brought out of this decision if the script had not been so dissonantly and crudely altered. In spite of the fact that the god’s pronoun is changed throughout and “man” is changed to “woman” where necessary, a number of glaring oversights remain, notably a choral hymn addressed to “Lord Dionysus,” an honorific that never refers to a woman, and Pentheus’s line about the god being “effeminate.” Calling a woman “effeminate” makes as much sense as calling a man “mannish.” On the other hand, calling a man “effeminate” invokes associations in the listener’s mind that are not so obvious and thus of richer significance. Nevertheless, in spite of the fact that she has been given a role that makes no sense, the performance by Rachel A. Gibian ’15 is very competent: her diction is clear and she generally emotes without dipping into melodrama.

The same, unfortunately, cannot be said for James M. Graham ’17, who plays the doomed prince Pentheus. His lines are delivered with such choking emotion that they are occasionally difficult to understand. This Pentheus appears to have two settings, namely “evil” and “really evil.” There is no subtlety in the performance, but much clenching of the jaw and tightening of muscles in what appears to be an effort physically to squeeze evil out of every pore. As annoying as all this straining is, its effects on the play as a whole are minimized by excellent support from the other actors.

All told, this is a good production with some inspired aspects; however, its flaws prevent it from being a great production. While the physical qualities of the play do so much to capture the spirit of Greek tragedy, the alterations to its content show a fundamental misunderstanding of its nature.