Warrior women and uppity females are very much in evidence in Nima Taleghani’s free adaptation of Euripides’ classic Greek tragedy. The tribe of wandering women who worship Dionysos, god of wine, partying and theatre, get themselves in a pickle when they kidnap Queen Agave (Sharon Small) to get even with her son, King Pentheus (James McArdle) who has outlawed them as terrorists.
Following a spectacular opening with a huge horse whose flowing surcoat is dripping with blood galloping towards us out of a ring of light, the tone changes abruptly to a mundane metaplay with lots of effing and blinding and shouting and gorblimey accents (“We just topple dickhead dictators!”) intended to expose theatrical trappings and challenge the audience. Imagine a feral female equivalent of Shakespeare’s Rude Mechanicals giving it large to the respectful patrons of the National Theatre and you’ll get the idea.
It’s a bold and intermittently exciting statement from the new Artistic Director Indhu Rubasingham but I hope it doesn’t continue in the same vein of theatrical deconstructivism and disrespect for the classics.
I’m all for bringing in dance and movement – especially in a group ensemble such as this – and a way of harnessing the power of classical theatre for a contemporary audience but there is a danger of creeping banality in the process. Taleghani is incapable of seeing a topical hot button without pushing it, which becomes tiresome in the extreme.
The staging and performances are excellent, however, and far outweigh the actual text, which is an ill-begotten combination of rap, laboured jokes and infantile profanity.
BACCHAE AT THE NATIONAL THEATRE TO NOVEMBER 1