GREEKS TEARING GIFTS

Greeks Tearing Gifts

The Bacchae, 2 to 20 November 2004, Lyric Theatre Hammersmith

This month, Kneehigh Theatre in collaboration with the Yorkshire Playhouse bring their contemporary reworking of the classic Greek play “The Bacchae” to the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith.

Made famous by the play written by Euripedes thousands of years ago, the Bacchae tells the tale of how things go horribly wrong when a man decides to disrespect on the secret celebrations of a city’s women to the god of dance and wine when he decides to spy on their sacred women-only revels. Well, things are actually a little more juicy than that with lots of intrigue as to how exactly the king comes to make this unwise decision…

If we can learn many things from the enduring power of the tale, one of them must certainly be that, for thousands of years, audiences have been fascinated with tales of excess turned violent. That’s a long time before the birth of Quentin Tarantino.

For those of you of a less classical bent, you may find it interesting to know that in this production, adapted by Emma Rice with new texts by Annamaria Murphy and Carl Grose, the play has been given a contemporary reworking that highlights its resonance in the present day.

If you would like to know more about the play “The Bacchae”, its history and its author, Euripedes, this entry is a good place to start learning about the original play, while this entry gives extensive information about its ancient author and his works.

Entertaining Violence

Playwrights worked within these restrictions learning that the power of descriptive language could often fire up an audiences’ imagination just as effectively as any graphic display of violence. This led to the convention of “the messenger speech” often delivered at a key stage of the play where a “messenger” would come onto stage and recount some tragic, often violent occurrence.

If you are interested in knowing more about the history and conventions of ancient Greek theatre, this online resource published online by the theatre school of the East Los Angeles College is actually one of the most comprehensive and easily understood on the Net.

If you’re interested in learning more about the conventions of the ancient Greek theatre, this resource from the University of Idaho is an easy-to-read introduction to how the ancient Greeks staged their plays and the conventions of the day such as “the messenger speech”.

If you really want to get to grips with the role of “the messenger” speech in ancient Greek Theatre and fancy a bit of serious reading, then this paper by Lynn Fotheringham at the University of Nottingham goes into full detail.

And of course, if you like, you can always read a translation of the entire play by Euripides here.

Plays like the “The Bacchae” were originally performed in some of the great wonders of ancient Greece, huge outdoor theatres. The most famous of these is at Epidarus. This site from the Foundation of the Hellenic World contains substantial information and resources in both English and Greek. Look out for the downloadable virtual reality animation which allows you to take a virtual tour of the theatre.

However, if you’re more generally interested in theatre and its history, the WWW Virtual Library Theatre and Drama section is a good place to start.

Traditionally Reinvented

Perhaps the most famous of these is by the Nobel Prize winner, Wole Soyinka the Nigerian playwright who reworked Euripedes play in 1973 to give it relevance to the African theatre and African political landscape of the day.

In addition to the Nobel Prize’s site, here are a few other places that offer excellent information about Wole Soyinka and his work...

The National University of Singapore hosts this excellent site on Soyinka’s work, its themes and its relation to other postcolonial writers and literature.

And this entry at Culturebase.net contains extensive information on the author and his work.

For those who like a serious but of literary criticism, this link offers an interesting insight into how the worlds of Soyinka’s Yoruba culture and those of western classical culture meet in his version of the play.

Similarly, for those who are interested in the staging of the play in a contemporary context, this resource from the Open University might be of interest

Closer to home in west London, it was that long ago that Questors Theatre the acclaimed non-professional theatre in Ealing staged their version of the play. Here is a section from the archive of their newsletter where the director, Spencer Butler, offers some thoughts on the relevance of the play to modern times.

And for those who are interested in the screen, this intriguing reworking of the play for screen caused something of a stir when it appeared in 2002.

If all this has got you thinking that maybe you would like to pursue an interest in something theatrical, why not consider some of these courses available in west London…

In Hammersmith & Fulham
In Harrow

Or, if you’re more interested in the writing side of things, why not check these out…

In Ealing
In Hammersmith & Fulham