The Bacchae, St Martins Theatre, Theatre Works, Melbourne Festival, Saturday October 24th 2015
"The Bacchae" is a co-production by St Martins Youth Arts Centre, Theatre Works and Fraught Outfit for the Melbourne Festival . We attended the 7.30 pm performance on Saturday October 24th 2015 at Theatre Works in Acland St, St Kilda.
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"The Bacchae" was conceived by Adena Jacobs and Aaron Orzech. The production was directed by Adena Jacobs with varying degrees of success.
Queuing up for General Admission in New York is better than Theatre Works' push and shove as the doors open. In New York at the Broadway theatres the patrons queue outside to allow pedestrians to use the side-walk (footpath), while the same occurs at the Fringe and Off Broadway theatres. They even queue for shows that have allocated seating due to the lack of foyer space. We are so spoiled in Australia with our larger foyers. Queuing in New York is a lovely respectful tradition for those who arrived early to have prime position, particularly for General Admission shows.
A person behind the bar made a pre-show announcement regarding turning off phones etc. Many people were still outside and could not hear this announcement. I cannot understand why they do not use a microphone or learn to project their voice for the announcements.
Entering the theatre the usher wanted to take our whole ticket. I like to keep my ticket minus stub with all of my programmes. She said I could get it after the show. I promptly tore off my stub and continued walking into the theatre. Who is teaching these people Front of House protocols? Have they ever had to do a box office reconciliation or budget the show. Oh no that is what commercial theatres have to do!
A person tripped on the steps entering the theatre and someone came to their assistance. Some of the steps are difficult to see as each row of seats are extremely close together.
The show began at about 7.39 pm and continues the 30 year tradition of every show that we have attended at the Melbourne Festival since 1986 has not started on time.
Waiting for the show to begin a light was flashing up above centre stage. It reminded me of the lighting flash that killed Dionysus' mother Semele. I thought this was a good effect to create an atmosphere.
The font in the programme was so small and quite difficult to read under the foyer's lighting. Thankfully I had read about "The Bacchae" and watched a few short documentaries to remind myself about the story. Sadly this production did not provide clarity with the story, but rather visions from the story.
There was the portable loo that a young lady exited from. It was as if she was leaving her throne!
The main stage was at floor level with a raised stage at the rear. There was a couch on stage left with a small orchestra. A covered item was downstage left while the portable loo was upstage right. In front of the the raised stage was a lot of black plastic covering something to be revealed later in the show. This reveal was a great highlight both design wise and theatrically.
A Greek character lies on the raised stage and we hear amplified breathing. I think it is Semele who has been struck by the lighting from the flashing lights we saw as we sat waiting. Long pause and another meditation. A young mid wife type character walks forward with her mouth covered in an industrial strength rubber mask, and her hands sporting long rubber gloves. She helps give birth and a large golden item is retrieved. I recognise the Greek shape but cannot recall its name. Maybe it is the mask of Dionysus.
The young cast enter and stand against the wall stage right. A boy soprano sings. Others join in. The singing was beautiful. What they sang I could not say but the sounds were beautiful to create a haunting atmosphere.
Gradually each person steps forward and sits on the ground in various poses with or without a prop. They all looked into the audience. Again voyeuristic. Are we or are they the voyeurs? Another long meditation or pause.
The cast gradually come to life one by one. The frenzy for each character is a teenage version with each in their own world. One listens to her music via earphones from her phone, others are texting, another eats her packet of chips and shares them to one another performer. It is made obvious that all of these performers are individuals, as there is little interaction between each of the characters.
A small blow up children's wading pool was brought onto the lower stage. Two performers finished blowing up the pool. Another stream of performers came and emptied about three buckets of water into the wading pool.
One or two cast get into the wading pool with their shoes on. By the way all of the female cast wear the same black shoes with a white edge around the sole. Later they will be barefooted.
Some great images included the warriors lining up in black bikinis with stockings over their heads wearing black baseball caps and their bodies smeared with oil. They performed a routine counting and repeating the moves. I found this choreographically created a strong image of young warrior type goddesses. Gradually they stopped as the leader continued alone and then gold liquid ran from her groin and down her legs.
Some of the images would be confronting for people realising that these are young girls. In some ways I was worried that the wrong type of person could be viewing this show as the girls are very young. If I were a parent I would have been very worried.
The young boy soprano in his long socks, basketball boots and baseball cap went up to the raised stage and sat on the black draped sofa and opened a Coca-Cola. (Great product placement and advertising too!) It was a youthful version of a blokey male kicking back with a drink of choice. A great image.
A large gift bag is placed stage right. Later the bag will be emptied and the performers' black shoes will be retrieved. There will lots of checking for names inside the shoes and swapping and matching to ensure the correct performer receives their own shoes. This was one of the few times that the characters shared or offered help. It is like a gorge of consumerism and was a great image of seeking the same personalised item and reminiscent of the quest for the latest gadget or consumable.
Underneath the black plastic raises a large blow up. It is as if it is rising out of the ashes and is a great piece of stage design and engineering. The blow up transforms and creates a large head with a mouth wide open and a tongue hanging out. The mouth opening was like a frame of the raised stage behind. More so it was theatrically intriguing for us as the audience to see what it would become. I think it was a blown up version of the mask of Dionysus with its tongue sticking out.
Later all of the cast wear long phallic symbols from their waists. This could be the section where they all turn into snakes. Each goes into a frenzy of heightened sexual pleasure. One even urinates proudly, while others swing their members around, others masturbate in various poses, one plays with her member as if a machine gun behind the couch. (I wonder if this idea was copied from Batsheva Dance Company's "Last Work"?)
On the raised stage a large Minnie Mouse head is played with. I wonder if Disney approved of this being used? It was foretelling the beheading.
A large piece of meat covered in plastic cling-wrap was beaten by a girl with a baseball bat. She created a pulsating rhythm with each swing of the bat.
Another monologue from the Messenger outlines aspects of the story of "The Bacchae".
The sexual frenzy erupts and then quietens as a performer enters wearing 1970's platform open toe shoes and a shirt dress with a revealing back-line. She steps upstage to the others and takes off her dress to reveal she is topless. It is similar to Pentheus being found out. This young lady who I think represented Pentheus kneels with her back to the audience and she holds her head forward so that we cannot see her head any-more. Another steps forward with a baseball bat and swings it to behead the kneeling girl. Blackout! A strong ending but I wanted the grieving scene of the mother realising that she had killed her own son.
The music was well played by the small ensemble of musicians. Vocally the singers provided pure sounds.
"The Bacchae" is a complex story and this version was from a different perspective as we could see the women throughout. I felt sickened by the exploitation of the youth in this production as we were made voyeurs without us knowing in advance. I would not have attended had I known as it was more pornographic with their vulnerability.
"The Bacchae" reminded me of "Lord of the Flies" with the brutality and orgiastic rituals.
This production reminded me of the 1970's productions from the archives of the avant-garde from Megan Terry, Jean-Claude van Itallie or theatres such as The Living Theatre in New York.
I wrote the following feedback on a survey from Theatre Works:
I was disgusted that it was more pornographic than any porn
I have ever seen. We were trapped in the
audience and forced to become voyeurs of these under age performers masturbating
etc. I am curious if they received
parental permission to perform this work.
I have seen many avant-garde performances and had these performers been over 18
years it would have changed my perception. There was no warning at how graphic
this show was to be. It was not the
graphic nature but the age of the young girls oiling themselves etc. They were basically child bait and playing
the seductive mirror of voyeurism. Not
impressed with this aspect. But thought
some of the imagery was good.
We have seen many shows at Theatre Works. We will be very
careful about what we will see there in the future. We have been to 30 Melbourne Festivals and
this was the most confronting show we have seen - due to the under age
performers. They subjected us to more
antics than Hair, Let My People Come, Oh Calcutta etc. It made some hard core ADULT porn look tame.
I have attended fringe festivals in many other cities around the world. This was a good quality fringe festival show and an average Melbourne Festival show. Overall I gave this a 6.5/10, My partner gave it a 4/10.
