Bakkhai Variations:
Villanova Theatre
First encounter
The First Encounter event is when the production dramaturg creates a moment for the entire artistic company to engage with the project’s broader themes and ideas. This almost always begins with an overview of the dramaturgy website and a viewing of the Visual File for all present, and this one is no different!
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The overview and V-File viewing should only take ten minutes (10) minutes to leave lots of time for the good bits afterward.
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Creating Community Ritual
After watching the Visual File, the communal ritual commences with ten (10) minutes for all present to make their own thyrsus! A thyrsus was the primary votive object for Dionysian worshippers and could be described as a mixture between a magic wand, a spear, and an ecclesiastical staff. This object will be with the cast or crew member for the entirety of their time in this project, and maybe after if they’re feeling sentimental.
Going outside, if the participant has safe and easy access to the outdoors, could enhance their experience. Finding things from nature, including sticks, branches, pine cones, grass, leaves, etc. will create a traditional thyrsus for this ritual. However, if they can’t, one can start with something they have laying around that they don’t use such as an old ruler, a cardboard box in the recycling, an empty wine bottle, etc. Ancient thyrses incorporated the holder’s hair, so one can use personal items if that doesn’t gross them out.
The dramaturg will be present the entire time to answer questions or check-in with people if they feel unsure about what they are doing, but this object will for the participant themself and no one else, so there is no wrong way to do this. Also, this is just the beginning of the person’s thyrsus! There’s plenty of time to add to it throughout the process.
To provide some inspiration, the dramaturg will read an excerpt from this prose-poem written by Baudelaire called “The Thyrsus.”
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“What is a thyrsus? By its moral and poetical meaning, it is a sacerdotal emblem in the hand of priests or priestesses celebrating the divinity they interpret and serve. But physically it’s nothing but a stick, a hop-pole, a vine-prop — dry, hard, straight. Around this stick, in capricious meanders, stem and blossom frolic and frisk, the former sinuous and shy, the latter bent like a bell or a cup turned over. And an amazing glory gushes forth from this complexity of soft or dazzling lines and colors. Could we not say that the curve and the spiral pay court to the straight line and dance before it in mute admiration? Or claim that all these delicate corollas, all these flower-cups, explosions of scent and color, execute a mystic fandango around the hieratic stick? And what imprudent mortal, after all, will dare decide if the flowers and shoots are made for the stick or if the stick is only a pretext for exhibiting the beauty of shoot and flower? The thyrsus is the representation of your astonishing duality, master strong and venerable, dear Bacchant of mysterious and passionate Beauty. No nymph provoked by invincible Bacchus ever shook thyrsus over her maddened cohorts with more energy and caprice than your genius stirs in the hearts of your brothers. — The stick is your will, direct, firm, steadfast; the flowers, they are your fancy’s ramble about your will; the feminine element ’s prestigious pirouettes around the male. Straight line and arabesque, intention and expression, firmness of will, sinuosity of word, unity of aim, variety of means, allpowerful and indivisible amalgam of genius, what analyst will have the vile temerity to divide or separate you?”
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Once the time has past, anyone who is particularly proud of what they made will be given some time to share their thyrsus with the group, but there is no pressure to present this highly personal object if no one wants to.
Next, people will be randomly assigned into 6-8 breakout rooms, depending on attendance. These groups will have five (5) minutes to create a single component of a ritual that will hold the cast and crew’s collective hopes, anxieties, and excitements for the work ahead. This contribution should be a motion or short set of motions that correspond to a spoken word or phrase. Movement and sound.
To get the participants thinking about what ritual is and isn’t, the dramaturg will read these two quotes from Nadja Berberović’s paper “Ritual, Myth and Tragedy: Origins of Theatre in Dionysian Rites.”
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“The term ritual refers to culturally structured, repetitive actions with the explicit aim of articulation of those higher forces which are believed to govern the universe. ... Ritual involves portrayal and performance, a performance space, and performers.”
“The borderline between ritual and theatre, ceremony and play, may not always be easy to draw. Ancient Greek rituals had a vital narrative and a performative aspect, put together as myth and ritual. Within the aesthetic contextualization of myth — ‘hearing’ and ‘seeing’ the stories in performances — was essential in enhancing the gods’ credibility. Not only do myths have more validity when enacted through rituals, but it is myth that makes ritual interesting and meaningful. Greek religious choral song, hymns, paeans and dithyrambs feature the telling of myth as part of a ritual performance.”
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What do we want to make concrete for ourselves in this process and how do we want that to show up for those who see the fruits of our labor?
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After the breakout rooms come back to the larger group to present their ritual contribution, the dramaturg will put them in order (hopefully with assistance from those eager to create this singular ritual). Once the ritual is assembled, the final five (5) minutes will consist of the entire group going over it together and then performing the whole ritual in unison, codifying the Bakkhai Variations’ team’s collective desire to create and support during a moment where those actions are more vital than ever.
