Bakkhai, a new version by Anne Carson

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Note the first: I primarily use they/them pronouns for Dionysos, despite Carson truthfully rendering the Greek using masculine language. I did this because I want us to have a conversation about this character’s gender, gender presentation, and inner life.

 

Note the second: Since I wrote this IR for James Ijames, instances of “you” are to him specifically.

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Favorite Line

“That’s why I’ve changed to mortal form —

how do I look?

Convincingly human?”

 

— Dionysos, 15

 

This line is completely new to Carson’s adaptation and only has basis in the general idea of Dionysos being in disguise to appear before their followers. The specificity and speed with which Carson renders the performative process of ‘becoming’ human really strikes me. We all put on masks and do our best to present as an approximation of what we think ‘human’ means. This question also opens up countless avenues for exploring how convincing our Dionysos actually is. Do we want them to be a little inhuman? How so? Or is the god’s power inversely proportional to how truthful their transformation appears? Also, how Dionysos appears to those around them changes depending on their wishes, further destabilizing what the audience thinks they see when they look at Dionysos. What may appear as a small wink and nod to a disguise contains layers of the central figure’s position in the world.

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Most Important Line

 

“Gods should not resemble humans in their anger.”

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— Kadmos, 69

 

Theologians, among many other types of analysis, consider the relationship and resemblance divine entities have to the humans they reportedly rule over. When the book of Genesis states that man was created in God’s image, God and divinity in general were vested with a human-like quality in how they exist in physical space. However, the way the Christian God experiences emotions varies much more widely. When Jesus separated the spiteful vengeance against Sodom, Gomora, and the Egyptians from His newfound benevolence, a distinct emotional relationship between God and humanity. Kadmos’ statement that deities ought to experience emotions differently than humans is a fascinating one within an Ancient Greek context. Gods like Zeus, Ares, and Poseidon rape innocent women without compunction and goddesses like Artemis and Hera liberally take over-wrought vengeance against those who have wronged them. Whether gods should resemble humans is of course a question of personal desire that varied between citizens, but it is pretty well recorded that gods did resemble humanity in how ruled by their emotions and impulses they were. In many ways, Bakkhai is a meditation on whether the mercurial nature of these entities with such power is just or not. This inquiry is compounded by Dionysos’ response to Kadmos’ line, “My father Zeus approved all those a long time ago” (69).

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Positives

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• Old ideas, New styles

  • Anne Carson’s poetry bears very little resemblance to the poetry of Attic Greece in terms of form and style. Despite that, she captures the comparative sense between tragic poetry and epic poetry. The plays of Euripides and his contemporaries were meant to feel more lived-in, more emotive, and more expressive than the long-form narratives of Homer. The understated nature of Carson’s translation cuts to the quick and finds the emotional core being conveyed in a particular moment, laying it bare. This, for a director like you, is a gift that I think we will want to leverage as frequently as possible.

• The only thing more Fearsome than a Woman Scorned is a Woman Unbound

  • Pentheus’ fears and misgivings about Dionysos seem to mostly revolve around losing control over Thebes’ women. The chorus announces how they have all “forsaken their shuttles, / they’ve left their looms, / they’ve dropped their aprons / and taken up their stations / on Dionysos’ mountain,” and in doing so the play creates a world of social inversion through allowing women to shake loose their patriarchal confines (17). Despite the play coming to a tragic end, Pentheus’ rage is counterbalanced by the Herdsman description of the maenads when they are not impeded by interlopers. This idyllic vision of their pastoral peace contradicts Pentheus’ lambasts when the Herdsman says to his king, “You told us to look out for drunkenness, / wild music, / wantoning through the woods —/ there was none of that” (39). Whether Pentheus’ issues stem from them eschewing their maternal roles at all, from finding peace outside of his city, or from the fearsomeness they demonstrate when they route their attackers is at a director’s discretion, but the reciprocal relationship between the Theban king and women he cannot control is undeniable and fascinating in a play from this period.

• What a Hottie

  • I adore how in love with Dionysos this play is. When Pentheus, the repressed fearmonger, describes them as a “Swoony type” with “long hair, bedroom eyes, cheeks like wine” you can tell that this character is undeniably magnetic (21). This gives us an amazing opportunity to subvert what that allure can be and what type of person, body, personality deserves such praise. Across adaptations and productions, the god is universally imbued with a magnetic quality, but what magnetizes people is not universal. This gives us the chance to show what charisma means, what is its power, and what are its dangers.

• Trust your Audience

  • Greek tragedy was known to all when they were first performed, or at least the core of the story was known to most. Some elements may have been added or expanded upon to work in the new format of the theatre, but complete surprise was rarely the desired effect. I mostly mention this because I know you, in your own plays, seek to trust the audience and have them explore the particular story beats as they unfold and Greek tragedy is perfectly suited to that desire. A good example is that Pentheus’ destruction is not merely foreshadowed, it is outright explained by Dionysos when they say Pentheus will “wear that dress to Hades / after his mother slaughters him with her own hands” an entire scene before it happens (45). I believe the more the audience is given that trust, the more excited they will be for the emotional trajectory of the piece.

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Challenges

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• Whose Mythology Is It Anyway?

  • As with most classical pieces, mythological references create what I call the ‘mythscape’ of shared allusions that connect the story currently unfolding to many others. To say that utilizing this ‘mythscape’ in a contemporary production might prove challenging is an understatement. Bakkhai specifically contains many references to men slain for their arrogance, attaching Pentheus’ fate to a long tradition of foolhardy men. Conveying this quality during these references is challenging enough, but more challenging will be locating the constant geographical information being thrown out with little regard for the audience’s comprehension. Many of the places are ruled by specific divine forces of the same name, creating additional confusion on how they may be invoked like a person and not a place. Additionally, these places may be right near Thebes or as far as Pakistan with little indication of which is which without a map available to the audience. That said, much of this can be solved in performance itself; giving the nearby locations a sense of intimacy and familiarity while conveying an expansiveness for the more far-flung locales could go a long way to clarifying the spatial relationships Dionysos’ influence.

• What’s in a Name?

  • I, personally, love how many of Dionysos epithets are invoked, but without expecting foreknowledge their connection to the wine god may become confusing. For example, the list “Bakkhos, / Twiceborn, / Dithyrambos, / Bromios, / Euios, / Dionysos!” is incredibly powerful because of the different aspects of Dionysos they refer to, but making these names distinct while also making it clear they refer to the same figure will be central to keeping the play’s textual landscape clear (32). Each name has an individual derivation, so we can explore them separately to see if a movement language can be associated with each to elucidate their purpose as an epithet rather than simply making them meaningless synonyms for Dionysos.

• You know other gods exist, right?

  • Pentheus’ denial to Dionysos' divine origins are of course bred from fear and ignorance. Your parallel to young far-right wannabe-demagogues a la Paul Ryan rings true for me, especially when he says things like, “Oh stop being clever! There’s a penalty for that!” (30). That said, I think it may prove difficult to thread the needle of emphasizing that, in the context of other birth myths, Dionysos is pretty normal. Athena burst from Zeus’ forehead, Aphrodite emerged from sea foam. They even reference Athena when they talk about Dionysos being birthed from “a masculine womb” (32). In a truly contemporary world, Pentheus would be the reasonable ones, but in a Greek sense he would be pushing back against something with a great deal of precedence. How we position him and clarify that context, or don’t, will likely greatly inform Pentheus’ perception to the audience.

• Quite the Act to Follow

  • The trajectory of tension and excitement does not always seem to follow the expected steady increase of Aristotelian structure. The largest possible challenge I foresee is connecting Dionysos burning a building to cinders and escaping imprisonment with their seduction of Pentheus. This can either have a defined ebb and flow or attempt to create a continuous build — both pose potential stumbling blocks regarding how we cue the audience into what the stakes are. The Greek audience would know that Pentheus’ life is in imminent danger during the seduction scene if he accepts the offer, but will ours? I think highlighting and subduing elements in this sequence will prove essential to keeping the Pentheus/Dionysos dynamic clear.

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Questions

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• I believe this to be the core question that will guide many choices throughout the process: Is Dionysos “right”? In other words, do his justifications deserve audience empathy or should they leave disgusted with his maliciousness? When Teiresias says Dionysos “wants respect, that’s all,” are we meant to be satisfied with that (23)? Do they deserve our respect? Of course appreciating and even worshipping our more base instincts and finding joy in revelry is worthy of recognition. But do the ends justify the means? And if they don’t, then what are we ultimately leaving the audience with in terms of celebrating our inner Bakkhai? To phrase this a somewhat different way, whose tragedy is this? Who are we meant to empathize with and why?

• What do Carson’s shaped verses mean in the performative landscape of this production? When the lines begin to curve in or out (e.g. the Entrance ode) or change with jagged variance (e.g. the 3rd Choral Ode), what does that communicate to you? Are they more literal demarcations for pause, breath, and emphasis or do they connote a sense of movement or lack thereof? They are clearly very intentional and I feel they are a gift to be explored in the rehearsal room, but it might prove useful to have a plan for how to address the more abstractly shaped stanzas so Carson’s intent can shine through.

• What does the Bakkhic revelry actually look and feel like? What resemblance will our Bakkhai have to the “Bakkhic burlesque” Pentheus believes it to be (24)? From another angle, what is the spiritual and psychological essence of the bakkhai? They seem like a utopian anarchist cult at some times and then at others like authoritarians in lines like “To think or act outside the law is never right” (47). While beginning from the place of wrestling fan can certainly evoke that fervor, I’d like to delve into the aspects of the maenads. Are there individual personalities within the group or do they present a unified front? If the latter, unified toward what?

• I want to flag Dionysos’ foreignness and make sure we delve into how that lives in their body, costuming, movement lexicon, etc. How does their foreign aspects influence their daimonic aspects? When they ask, “How do I look? / Convincingly human?” does this mean that Dionysos naturally occurs as inhuman (15)? If this is true, I think we must decouple and distinguish this character’s foreignness from their inhumanity or else it may occur xenophobic. Without altering the text, their ethnic otherness is hammered home by Pentheus when he says, “Foreigners all lack sense, compared to Greeks,” making Dionysos’ triumph partially a rebuke of Greek supremacy (29). In fact, even the bakkhai themselves say, “We are foreign, we sing a foreign song of joy” after Pentheus’ death (54).

• How does time pass throughout this play? How much time is covered and when do we cover it? Do the dialogue scenes fit more into ‘real time,’ while the choral moments fall more into montage or is it something else? When the chorus sings, “There is a morning star, / there is an evening star,” is a day passing or are they experiencing another form of non-reality (26)? Are we interested in exploring montage or other forms of postmodern performance?

• This is a more practical question, but I want to put it down so we can at least discuss it. Teiresias and Kadmos are both explicitly written talking about their age and I know you have feelings about an actor aging up or down and its authenticity. Do you have any ideas of how this will be cast here at Villanova? Do we make it ironic and have it be people in their 30s and 40s talking to people in their 20s? Do we want the masks to do most of that work?

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Crack/Thread

 

The clash between chaotic newness and stable tradition ripples through my core stances as an artist and person in general. I so often find myself unsure how to make inroads into disrupting harmful practices that have gone unquestioned and the utter implosion of toxic stability this play represents inspires me. While I by no means want to lead men like Pentheus to such a violent end, I hope exposure to this text will open up conversations about the possible damage of refusing instinct, connection, vulnerability, and pleasure and how we may undo that harm. Moreover, the blurring of binaries wrought from Dionysos’ challenge to Pentheus’ rule — be they gender, Apollonian/Dionysian, or hierarchical — resonates with my own desire to complexify binary paradigms in my own practice.

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