Euripides

The Bacchae


Studio Performance in the Main Hall

Keener Cadmus /Cadmus
Attila Orbán
 
Keener Agaue
Réka Csutak
 
Agaue 1
Imola Kézdi
 
Agaue 2
Csilla Albert
 
Agaue 3
Júlia Laczó
 
Agaue 4
Emőke Boldizsár
 
Dionysis
Ferenc Sinkó
 
Pentheus
András Buzási
 
Tiresias
Endre Senkálszky
 
Figure-in-Bag
Melinda Kántor
 
Councillor of Pentheus
Andrea Vindis
 
Chorus Leader
Kati Panek
 
Chorus
Emese Ambrus
 
Chorus
Róbert Laczkó Vass
 
Chorus
Csilla Varga
 
XX
Alpár Fogarasi
 
XX
Bence Mányoki
 
XX
Lehel Salat

directed by
David Zinder
 
dramaturg
Kinga Kelemen
 
set design
Miriam Guretzky
 
costume design
Miriam Guretzky
 
designer's assistant
Dina Konson
 
masks
Attila Venczel
 
music composed by
Zsolt Lászlóffy
 
choreography
Vava Ştefănescu
 
stage manager
László Mányoki
 
prompter
Andrea Tóth

Date of the opening: October 21, 2005

Among the themes that inform the play the most prominent are: tyranny, religious fanaticism, masks (theatricality, disguise), a blurring of gender, madness, mass hysteria, and politics. There are in fact more, but these are perhaps the ones that most easily bridge the distance from the 5th century BCE, when the play was written, to our own times. Apart from these individual themes there is also what one critic has called "a slippage of opposites" – themes of opposition that interweave with each other throughout the play to create an extraordinarily rich tapestry. Among these, the most important are: male/female, reality/illusion, order/anarchy, tyranny/political compro-mise, and madness/sanity. Finally, the unusual structure and story-line of the play call into question the definition of tragedy, since, despite the fact that it undoubtedly tragic in its outcome, in effect there is no true tragic hero in the play, and it also contains surprising moments of comedy. All of these contradictions and oppositions within the traditional structure of a Greek tragedy have led me into a search for a revised, up-dated interpretation of the meaning of tragedy in our times.   David Zinder