The Bacchae

“He is life's liberating force.
He is release of limbs and communion through dance.
He is laughter, and music in flutes.
He is repose from all cares - he is sleep!
When his blood bursts from the grape and flows across tables laid in his honour to fuse with our blood, he gently, gradually, wraps us in shadows of ivy-cool sleep.”
- Euripides, The Bacchae

This new work with songs is a contemporary adaptation of Euripides' quintessential Greek tragedy. Dionysus, the god of wine and theatre, takes terrible revenge on a city for defying his will, and leads his followers in rebellion against its authoritarian, patriarchal rule. Dionysus brings revolution and freedom - but also blurs the lines between pleasure, intoxication, madness and violence as the social order crumbles.

This adaptation reimagines the chorus of the Bacchae as the centre of this universal story about human obsessions and the pursuit of ecstasy to its gruesome and devastating conclusion.

"In The Bacchae, we are asked to recognise not just the smiling and dangerous Dionysus as a new divinity, but also to struggle to understand that the way we define ourselves and our social order is limited and fragile."
- Simon Goldhill

7.30pm

stage@leeds

£9.00 (£7.00)