The last of the great Greek tragedies was written by Euripides when he was over 70 and living in voluntary exile in the wilds of Macedonia, far from civilisation. The play, a psychological struggle between restraint and excess, was first produced in Athens in 405 BC, a year after his death. It won him a posthumous First Prize
King Pentheus of Thebes, foolhardy, arrogant, blasphemous, dares not only to question the divine paternity of Dionysos but he also attempts to stamp out his cult, a popular mixture of religious mania and erotic orgies. Dionysos, piqued, arrives on earth in human form to exact a terrible revenge. He persuades the king to disguise himself as a woman and go to the mountain woods and spy on their frenzied rites. Led by his mother, the delirious women tear him to pieces.
The tragedy, in a colloquial version by the Canadian poet Anne Carson and directed by James Macdonald, is performed as it would have been in Ancient Greece, by only three male actors and a chorus. Ben Wishaw’s Dionysos, sinuous and androgynous, is a sly, effeminate, playful puss in an evening ball gown; and with his moustache and his beard and his long flowing hair, which he girlishly fondles, he looks like Conchita Wurst. Bertie Carvel doubles as Pentheus and his raving mother. A chorus of multi-racial women sing a cappella created by Orlando Gough beautifully.