The Bacchae

by Euripides
Translated by Paul Woodruff
Adapted and Directed by Jeffrey Gardner

New Hazlett Theater
6 Allegheny Square East
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Thursday, June 21, 2007 - 8:00pm
Friday, June 22, 2007 - 8:00pm
Saturday, June 23, 2007 - 8:00pm
Sunday, June 24, 2007 - 2:00pm

For more information, please email us at
fourthrivertheatre@gmail.com.

The Play

This June, the Fourth River Theatre Ensemble will present Euripides' The Bacchae at the New Hazlett Theatre on Pittsburgh's North Side. The production will be a multi-disciplinary reworking of the play, utilizing dance, movement, poetry, and music to augment the power of the text. Paul Woodruff's sterling new translation helps to bring the classical Greek script to life for a modern audience. The Bacchae is the story of a clash between Pentheus, secular ruler of Thebes, and the god Dionysus. Contrary to the advice of the city's older and wiser men and women, Pentheus denies the legitimacy of Dionysus as a god. Dionysus conscripts a host of Thebans to demonstrate his deity and his power and exact his vengeance on the city.

Pat Shaw (standing) and Kate Ross in rehearsal as Pentheus and Dionysus.

From the Director

Let me say this first: The Bacchae is an amazing play. Without that central fact, nothing else may be discussed. Euripides composed it, most likely in exile from Athens, and died before its first performance: where, unsurprisingly, it won first place in the Great Dionysia, a yearly festival in Athens. The fact that it won this great acclaim, despite being contrary and shocking in many ways to "normal" values, says something important about the quality of the script.

But why should we care about the reactions of the Athenians? Although we might make some very startling comparisons between our nation and Great Athens at the time, none of us lived in the crown of Attica at the end of the Peloponnesian war. Rather, The Bacchae is important to us not because it was well-loved by the Greeks, but because it says something meaningful to us today. It is a play about stifling authority, religious fanaticism, the struggle between oppressors and oppressed, and the unhappy results of that clash. It is about the conflict between men and women, between secular and religious authority, and between a single man and the masses. The Greeks provide a convenient mirror. We view the great tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides as epic and beautiful: we must also remember that they are vibrant, honest, and still exceedingly relevant to our modern life. The Bacchae exposes to an unsuspecting audience the razor's edge it walks, and the terrifying consequences which are the result of a misstep.

Jeffrey Gardner
Artistic Director
Fourth River Theatre Ensemble