The Bacchae

The Teatro Ostia Antica Festival's summer season kicks off with a cornerstone of the ancient repertoire, The Bacchae by Euripides, directed by Greek maestro Theodoros Terzopoulos, a leading figure in contemporary theater, who brings Euripides's masterpiece to the stage for the seventh time.

The plot of the tragedy, written between 407 and 406 BC, features the god Dionysus, son of Zeus and Semele, who arrives in human form in Thebes, his mother's homeland, with the aim of punishing, by twisting their minds, the Theban women who have doubted his divine birth. Only Pentheus, king of Thebes, is determined to oppose the god's worship. When the possessed women go to Mount Cithaeron to celebrate the Bacchic mysteries, Pentheus is persuaded by the god to follow him, disguised as a woman, up the mountain; but Pentheus's mother, Agave, Semele's sister, and the Bacchantes, gripped by Dionysian delirium, mistake him for a lion and tear him to pieces. Thus the god's vengeance is accomplished.

In Terzopoulos's monumental staging, Euripidean tragedy is stripped of all historicism to be transformed into a metaphysical experience and a reflection on the archetype of the “stranger". In this context, the god Dionysus is understood not only as a deity of the past, but as a wandering figure in constant transformation who challenges the boundaries of time and space. This "stranger" is contextualized in the present, having traversed the conflicts of the Middle East and landed on the shores of the Mediterranean, a metaphor for an endless journey undertaken by people in flight and in constant transformation.

Translation by Edoardo Sanguineti; direction, adaptation, sets, lighting, and costumes by Theodoros Terzopoulos; original music by Panagiotis Velianitis; assistant director and dramaturgy collaborator Savvas Stroumpos; assistant director Stravos Papadopoulos; dramaturgy assistant Michalis Traitsi.

Main cast: Roberto Latini (Dionysus), Alvia Reale (Agave), Enzo Vetrano (Cadmus), Stefano Randisi (Tiresias), Marco Cacciola (Pentheus).

The show is the result of a synergistic co-production effort between the Teatro di Roma – Teatro Nazionale, Emilia Romagna Teatro ERT / Teatro Nazionale, and the Attis Theatre Company, an international collaboration that consolidates its artistic quality and cultural value.

Photo: official poster of the event