Dionysus Resurrected (eBook)

ERIKA FISCHER-LICHTE is Professor of Theatre Studies at the Institut für Theaterwissenschaft at the Freie Universität 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).

Acknowledgments vii

Preface ix

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 (1978-2008) -

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

Name Index 231

Subject Index 236

"The changing fortunes of The Bacchae, as told in
this engaging book, are almost as dramatic as the play itself. Long
neglected, it made an astonishing comeback in the sixties,
capturing our world of cultural and religious clashes with uncanny
precision. In these pages, Erika Fischer-Lichte has turned a
classic into a masterwork for our time."

--Martin Puchner, Harvard University

"There is only one person (Fischer-Lichte) who has the
experience, the knowledge and the perspectives - theoretical,
theatrical, political - to write this book. It
simultaneously illumines the ancient Bacchae and the
contemporary global theatre."

--Oliver Taplin, Oxford University

"For the first time, performances of The Bacchae
are studied from a world perspective - North, South, East and
West. Fischer-Lichte's pioneering book is illuminated by her
nuanced conceptions of ritual."

--Maria Shevtsova, University of London