Dionysus Resurrected

ISBN-13: 9781405175784 / Angielski / Twarda / 2014 / 264 str.

Erika Fischer–Lichte

Opis

Dionysus Resurrected analyzes the global resurgence since the late 1960s of Euripides' The Bacchae. By analyzing and contextualizing these modern day performances, the author reveals striking parallels between transformational events taking place during the era of the play's revival and events within the play itself.

• Puts forward a lively discussion of the parallels between transformational eventsduring the era of the play's revival and events within the play itself
• The first comparative study to analyse and contextualize performances of The Bacchae that took place between 1968 and 2009 from the United States, Africa, Latin America, Europe and Asia
• Argues that presentations of the play not only represent liminal states but also transfer the spectators into such states
• Contends that the play's reflection on various stages of globalization render the tragedy a contemporary play
• Establishes the importance of The Bacchae within Euripides' work as the only extant tragedy in which the god Dionysus himself appears, not just as a character but as the protagonist

Dionysus Resurrected analyzes the global resurgence since the late 1960s of Euripides’ The Bacchae. By analyzing and contextualizing these modern day performances, the author reveals striking parallels between transformational events taking place during the era of the play’s revival and events within the play itself.

Spis treści

Preface vii

Acknowledgments xvii

Introduction 1

Rediscovering The Bacchae

Part I: Festivals of Liberation: Celebrating Communality 25

Chapter 1: The Birth Ritual of a New Theatre 27

Richard Schechner s Dionysus in 69

in New York (1968)

Chapter 2: Celebrating a Communion Rite? 48

Wole Soyinka s The Bacchae of Euripides

at London s National Theatre (1973)

Chapter 3: Sparagmos and Omophagia 72

Teat(r)o Oficina s Bacantes in São Paulo (1996)

Part II: Renegotiating Cultural Identities 91

Chapter 4: On the Strangeness and Inaccessibility of the Past 93

The Antiquity Project at the Schaubühne

Berlin (1974)

Chapter 5: Performing or Contaminating Greekness? 116

Theodoros Terzopoulos The Bacchae in

Delphi (1986)

Chapter 6: In Search of New Identities 136

Krzysztof Warlikowski s The Bacchae

in Warsaw (2001)

Part III: Productive Encounter or Destructive Clash of Cultures? 157

Chapter 7: Dismemberment and the Quest for Wholeness 159

Suzuki Tadashi s The Bacchae in Japan and on

World Tour (1978 2006)

Chapter 8: Transforming Kathakali 186

The Bacchae by Guru Sadanam P. V. Balakrishnan

in Delphi and New Delhi (1998)

Chapter 9: Beijing Opera Dismembered 206

Peter Steadman and Chen Shi–zheng s The Bacchae

in Beijing (1996)

Epilogue 225

Index of names 00

Index of subjects 00

O autorze

Erika Fischer–Lichte is Professor of Theatre Studies at the Institut für Theaterwissenschaft at the Freie Universitaet of Berlin and Director of the International Research Centre Interweaving Performance Cultures . She has published extensively on the history of the theatre and on the reception of Greek tragedy. Her most recent publications include Theatre, Sacrifice, Ritual: Exploring Forms of Political Theatre (2005), The Transformative Power of Performance: A New Aesthetics (2008), and Performance and the Politics of Space: Theatre and Topology (edited with Benjamin Wihstutz, 2012).

Blurb

Before the late 1960s, Euripides The Bacchae had almost no performance record on modern stages. Since then, the play has been staged many times in the United States, Africa, Latin America, Europe and Asia. Drawing parallels between the elements of transition, transformation, and violence in the second half of the Twentieth Century and the plot of The Bacchae, Fischer–Lichte argues that the play s reflection on features identified by modern day viewers as globalization allowed the performance to accomplish what the ancient viewers believed Dionysus, the protagonist, brought about. In this sense, the author contends that Dionysus resurrects as the god of globalization, rendering the tragedy a contemporary play. By analyzing and contextualizing these performances worldwide, Fischer–Lichte reveals the reasons behind the resurrection of this much discussed, but until recently, rarely performed tragedy.