Skip to main content

The Bacchae

The Studio, Edinburgh

Three stars 

 What do you do when you’re told you’re not the God you say you are? In Dionysus’ case after being barred from Thebes by king Pentheus and his mother Agave in one of Euripides’ defining works, you take revenge on those that disrespected with your own gang, and hell mewnd the lot ofd them. 

 This is more or less the driving force for Dionysus in Euripides’ much-reimagined  piece of myth-making involving a cast of, if not thousands, then certainly a few. The last time a new version of the play graced Scottish stages was by way of David Greig’s version in 2007, when Dionysus turned up mob handed in the form of Alan Cumming and a gospel choir in tow. 

 Arriving in Edinburgh hot on the heels of Bard in the Botanics' production of Euripides' other greatest hit, Medea, Ewan Downie’s new take on The Bacchae for the Company of Wolves company couldn’t be more different. Written by Downie, and performed solo by him over an intense and relentless hour, this is a stark and grim faced rendition that sees its creator attempt the impossible as he throws himself into playing all the roles. 

Opening with a song sung in Greek, the late Ian Spinks’ production was first seen in 2023, and is a mixture of poetic declamation worthy of old time Speakers Corner combined with Downie’s committed physicality. Now helmed by Heather Knudtsen, this doesn’t quite compensate for the lack of actual Bacchae on designer Alisa Kalyanova’s black walled room illuminated by strip lights perched in supermarket milk trolleys. Any Dionysian rites that the Thebans were so wary of here become something of a private floorshow in an intellectually scholarly and physically demanding excursion into ancient Greece that takes no prisoners.

The Herald, March 11th 2026

 ends


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Myra Mcfadyen - An Obituary

Myra McFadyen – Actress   Born January 12th 1956; died October 18th 2024   Myra McFadyen, who has died aged 68, was an actress who brought a mercurial mix of lightness and depth to her work on stage and screen. Playwright and artistic director of the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, David Greig, called McFadyen “an utterly transformative, shamanic actor who could change a room and command an audience with a blink”. Citizens’ Theatre artistic director Dominic Hill described McFadyen’s portrayal of Puck in his 2019 production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre in London as “funny, mischievous and ultimately heartbreaking.”   For many, McFadyen will be most recognisable from Mamma Mia!, the smash hit musical based around ABBA songs. McFadyen spent two years on the West End in Phyllida Lloyd’s original 1999 stage production, and was in both film offshoots. Other big screen turns included Rob Roy (1995) and Our Ladies (2019), both directed by Mi...
2 comments
Read more

Losing Touch With My Mind - Psychedelia in Britain 1986-1990

DISC 1 1. THE STONE ROSES   -  Don’t Stop 2. SPACEMEN 3   -  Losing Touch With My Mind (Demo) 3. THE MODERN ART   -  Mind Train 4. 14 ICED BEARS   -  Mother Sleep 5. RED CHAIR FADEAWAY  -  Myra 6. BIFF BANG POW!   -  Five Minutes In The Life Of Greenwood Goulding 7. THE STAIRS  -  I Remember A Day 8. THE PRISONERS  -  In From The Cold 9. THE TELESCOPES   -  Everso 10. THE SEERS   -  Psych Out 11. MAGIC MUSHROOM BAND  -  You Can Be My L-S-D 12. THE HONEY SMUGGLERS  - Smokey Ice-Cream 13. THE MOONFLOWERS  -  We Dig Your Earth 14. THE SUGAR BATTLE   -  Colliding Minds 15. GOL GAPPAS   -  Albert Parker 16. PAUL ROLAND  -  In The Opium Den 17. THE THANES  -  Days Go Slowly By 18. THEE HYPNOTICS   -  Justice In Freedom (12" Version) ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Passage – Hip Rebel Degenerates: Black, White and Red All Over

Prelude – The Power of Three   Fear. Power. Love. This life-and-death (un)holy trinity was the driving force and raisons d’être of The Passage, the still largely unsung Manchester band sired in what we now call the post-punk era, and who between 1978 and 1983 released four albums and a handful of singles.    Led primarily by composer Dick Witts, The Passage bridged the divide between contemporary classical composition and electronic pop as much as between the personal and the political. In the oppositional hotbed of Margaret Thatcher’s first landslide, The Passage fused agit-prop and angst, and released a song called Troops Out as a single. The song offered unequivocal support for withdrawing British troops from Northern Ireland.    They wrote Anderton’s Hall, about Greater Manchester’s born again right wing police chief, James Anderton, and, on Dark Times, rubbed Brechtian polemic up against dancefloor hedonism. On XOYO, their most commercial and potentially mo...
Post a Comment
Read more