THE BACCHAE

 

CO-PRODUCED BY ST MARTINS & FRAUGHT OUTFIT

CO-COMMISSIONED BY ST MARTNS, THEATRE WORKS & MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL ARTS FESTIVAL

 

MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL ARTS FESTIVAL. OCTOBER 2015.

 

 

 

"Confoundingly brilliant theatre" ALISON CROGGON - ABC ARTS

 

A city teeters on the edge of crisis. A god arrives in the guise of a mortal. Boundaries collapse; old, young, boy, girl, human, beast, mortal, divine, good, bad, light and dark. Co-created by Aaron Orzech and critically-acclaimed director Adena Jacobs, with a collaborating ensemble of young female actors and musicians, The Bacchae is an epic, and hallucinatory theatrical experience.

 

A group of teenage girls pray to the god Dionysus, seeking salvation in the arms of excess. Around them a plague rages and their city burns, as all they've known turns to dust at their hands. The female cast from the acclaimed St Martins lend The Bacchae offers an unsettling vision of sacrifice and spiritual desolation.

 

A sister-piece to the critically acclaimed On the Bodily Education of Young Girls, The Bacchae continues Jacobs’ piercing exploration of lost innocence and primal fury. Invoking the choreographic operas of Pina Bausch and the visual tropes of contemporary art, this is playthat teeters on the dangerous frontier between terror and the sublime—a crackling declaration of revolution from the girls and women who have brought it to the stage.

 

conceived by Adena Jacobs & Aaron Orzech

directed by Adena Jacobs

musical composition: Kelly Ryall

dramaturgue: Aaron Orzech

set design: Dayna Morrissey

costume design: Chloe Greaves

lighting design: Danny Pettingill

associate artist: Alex Walker

musical director: Danielle O'Keefe

 

stage manager: Edwina Guinness 

assistant stage manager: Megan Bostock

production: Filament Group

audio engineer: Leigh Stout

​performed and devised by members of the st martins teen ensemble: 

Bonnie Brown, Tove Due, Eve Fitzgerald, Anouk Gleeson Mead, Cindy Hu, Maima Massaquoi, Romaine Mcsweeney, Eve Nixon, Bridie Noonan, Lois Scott, Mieke Singh Dodd & Carla Tilley

 

music performed by:

Freya Boltman (vocalist), Julian De Marco (boy soprano), Nicholas Dugdale (boy soprano), Xiao Xiao Kingham (organist & pianist), Sarah Lee (cellist), Deborah Lee (violinist), Bella Noonan (vocalist), Zofia Witowski Blake (vocalist & percussionist), Lier Deng (violinist), Lara Stebbens (cellist) & Kelly Ryall (electronics & sound)

"Beautiful, nightmarish, gruesomely funny, cruel and exhilarating" ALISON CROGGON - ABC ARTS

 

"These are huge, big-hearted dangerous works... they are transformative. They remind us what it is like to see theatre for the first time."

CHRIS BOYD - THE AUSTRALIAN

 

"It’s not exactly news that the adolescent female body is sexualised in popular culture and that young women are treated as objects rather than subjects. It’s deeply unsettling to witness evidence that these same young women are highly aware of this, though. Rather than protesting that objectification, they here produce a nightmarish burlesque that amplifies it to an excruciating point." JOHN BAILEY - REAL TIME

 

 

Nominated for 6 Green Room Awards:

Best Independent Production

Best Ensemble

Best Direction

Best Sound Design & Composition

Best Set & Costume Design

Best Lighting Design