Director's Comments
“I’ve always been ‘good’. So has my sister. So have my mother and her mother before her.
But if we were snapped in half like human sticks of rock, would we have ‘good’ written through the spine of us? I know in my heart not – lying next to patience would be wild abandon, next to kindness defiance, next to understanding anger. Maybe not in equal measure - but there they are, threatening to rise up, to bubble through.
And thank the gods, the fates, the luck of the draw that those darker parts can largely stay where they are! Oh, they privately taunt us and shake our bones from time to time, but we can tuck them away, keep them as our secret. But what if we weren’t so lucky? What if we were born somewhere else or at a different time? Do we know that we would never lose control? Never dance ‘til our feet bled, never march into the next village and kill our neighbour?
‘The Bacchae’ tells the story of this battle between the wild and the tame. The elation of breaking the rules and the terrible price to pay. It implicates us all and asks the question – what would you do?
‘We wouldn’t do that, we hear you say. But we’re all the same at the end of the day’”
Emma Rice - Director
