The young god Dionysus arrives in Thebes so as to initiate the city inhabitants into his cult. His passionate female followers, the Bacchae, revel in a strange ritual, during which they indulge in orgies and fall into a madness-like state. Their behaviour infuriates King Pentheus of Thebes, who confronts the stranger. Unfortunately, he has no inkling who his rival is, ignoring the advice of those around him to show humility. The arrival of a new god may not necessarily mean salvation, yet it certainly does herald the accession of a new order. Who is right? Is it Pentheus, who refuses to understand the impending change and instead strives to firmly grasp the world, or is it Dionysus the “rubble rouser”? Perhaps equilibrium can never hold sway without chaos …
The Bacchae by Euripides (c. 480 – c. 405 BC) foregrounds the themes of humility, revenge, mass hysteria, as well as travesty, focusing on the conflict arising in individuals and entire communities as a result of repudiation of religion. And it raises timeless questions. Although deeming ourselves to be atheists, at the bottom of our hearts we, willy-nilly, harbour faith, with transcendence being still present today, as a dimension of life that is impossible to define but must be lived. At the present time, when we witness massive dissemination of all kinds of information, when “incontrovertible truths” flood the virtual space, when rational arguments yield ground to unfounded theories and fallacies, our civilisation seems to be heading to unavoidable perdition. People devour each other, strike one another with clubs, bite each other’s heads, get lost in fury and indulge in unstoppable rampage …