For schools: “The Bacchae” by Euripides
Aris Biniaris
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Time & Date
Information
Tickets
5 € per student
Addressed to
Senior Highschool students
Ancient tragedy as a rock show. The director Aris Biniaris plugs the Bacchae into the mains and puts the divine Dionysus in front of the mike.
When rock music electrifies Euripides' words, when punk plugs the myth of the Bacchae into the mains, then Dionysus the great, the divine, will sing. Making his Onassis Stegi debut, Aris Biniaris turns the clash between Pentheus the king and Dionysus the god into an angry hymn to the division of the human soul into logic and instinct.
A fan of on-stage interaction between music and drama and a dedicated scholar of ancient tragedy, the director dares couple the subversive power of rock to the violent tragedy of the "Bacchae" in a production which sets out to work all our senses up into a frenzy.
In an arid, seismic landscape, a band of select performers—accompanied by two musicians—are invited to reflect through music and theater on the relationship between freedom and dogma, isolation and creativity.
With a career that started out with a psychedelic reading of Giannis Skarimbas' "The Divine He-Goat" and culminated with his maiden appearance at the Ancient Theater of Epidaurus with Aeschylus' "Persians", Aris Biniaris has spent recent years seeking out those corners of the theatrical repertoire that set out to illuminate issues relating to personal freedom, social dogmatism and historical memory.
Active at a time when Greek society seems stuck in a rut and unable to move on, Biniaris has settled on a work that deals with precisely these matters : "Pentheus ends up being ripped limb from limb because of his avowed and continued defiance of the god. Still, at the same time, the Dionysian life-giving, life-bearing force, the innate power of the nature of things, is never simply going to retire into the background. It is how we, as a society, choose to align ourselves with this life force that will determine our ultimate convergence or inevitable demise".
Credits
Adaptation based on Yorgos Chimonas' translation
Aris Biniaris, Theodora Kapralou
Direction
Aris Biniaris
Dramaturgy
Theodora Kapralou
Sets & Costumes
Paris Mexis
Lighting
Lefteris Pavlopoulos
Music
Victor Kouloumpis, Panos Sardelis
Movement
Amalia Bennett
Sound design/Sound engineer
Harris Kremmidas
Costume Design Assistant
Dafni Iliopoulou
Assistant to the Set Designer-Intern
Despina Faridou
Costume Construction
Despoina Makarouni
Props made by
Alexandros Loggos
Surtitles translation
Memi Katsoni
Produced by
Onassis Stegi-Athens
Producer Manager
Maria Dourou
With
Amalia Bennett, Aris Biniaris, Charis Charalambous, Giorgos Gallos, Anna Kalaitzidou, Karyofyllia Karabeti, Christos Loulis, Onisiforos Onisiforou, Evi Saoulidou, Konstantinos Sevdalis
Musicians
Victor Kouloumpis (electric bass), Panos Sardelis (drums)
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