Euripides and The Bacchae at the National Theatre

Abstract

New interpretations of the dramas of Euripides, particularly The Bacchae, appear frequently. Theodoros Terzopoulos recognised that dramatic tension does not only concern the soul but also the body. A multiperspective interpretation of the human condition implies that besides their spiritual nature, forebodings of tragedy also have an innate physical character. The performance has not started, yet in this interpretation of Terzopoulos we are already partaking of something that can only be provided by the theatre and nothing else, in which the stage is a border zone, that of being and human existence, which is where struggle for life, the natural fight for life or death, first whirls and then assumes an actiondriven form.