'Bacchae' review — Indhu Rubasingham begins her National Theatre tenure in spectacular style

Read our review of Nima Taleghani's new version of Bacchae, starring Clare Perkins, now in performances at the National Theatre to 1 November.

Summary

• Indhu Rubasingham begins her tenure as artistic director of the National Theatre with a bold production
• Actor Nima Taleghani makes his playwriting debut by offering an anarchic take on Euripides' Bacchae
• The excellent cast includes Clare Perkins as Vida and James McArdle as Pentheus

A giant white horse’s head plunges down from the heavens, dripping blood, to open this bold new take on Euripides’s Bacchae. It’s an exhilarating statement of intent, not just of a history-making debut play in the Olivier, by actor Nima Taleghani, but of a fresh era at the National Theatre under artistic director Indhu Rubasingham. Expect fireworks.

Taleghani is known for his work with Jamie Lloyd, and there are definite shades of Lloyd and Martin Crimp’s 2019 Cyrano de Bergerac: colloquial yet lyrically dexterous, rhyme-packed spoken-word poetry building to audacious rap, and, with anarchic wit and judicious changes, bringing a classic bang up to date.

The core plot elements remain. God of wine Dionysos, conceived by Zeus and a mortal woman, was rejected by his human family and now returns to Thebes seeking revenge. He lures his aunt Agave into the mountains, to join his Bacchae followers, and a war breaks out between Dionysos and his cousin King Pentheus, Agave’s son.

But, significantly, this version transforms the chorus of Bacchae into individual women with differing experiences and points of view. Their de facto leader is Clare Perkins’s indomitable Vida, who raised Dionysos; there’s also Melanie-Joyce Bermudez’s excitable Serene, Amanda Wilkin’s earnest clipboard-wielding Demi, and, the main challenge to Vida, Anna Russell-Martin’s ferocious fundamentalist Kera.

They each have their own reasons for being part of Dionysos’s revolution, toppling “dickhead dictators” and liberating women. Most are survivors of male violence, and there are potent references to the morality police and to a husband beating his wife after his team lost a match. However, some Bacchae believe that giving in to bloodlust makes them no better than their enemies – a crisis brought to a head when their latest recruit, Sharon Small’s wild-eyed Agave, goes to gruesome extremes.

Taleghani also hones in on Ukweli Roach’s charismatic Dionysos being a refugee, longing for acceptance but constantly facing discrimination (his group are labelled “terrorists”). James McArdle’s brilliantly snivelling Pentheus, meanwhile, is a thin-skinned autocrat (and yes, there’s a brief Trump impression) who constantly tries to project a strongman image, but turns toxic when he can’t handle his feelings. The only issue with humanising him to this degree is that it slightly unbalances the latter part of the story.

Rubasingham’s assured production balances emotional moments and heavier subjects with zippy irreverence. Right from the start, a gloriously swaggering, eye-rolling Perkins cuts through the melodrama – “Bigman relax with the theatrics!” – while taking charge of the space. Yet this is still a tragedy, and an agonisingly preventable one, thanks to the stubborn pride of male leaders. The climactic grief doesn’t hit as hard as it might, but the lesson is a salient one.

Kate Prince supplies explosive hip-hop choreography (set to DJ Walde’s beats), demonstrating the collective power of the Bacchae, Robert Jones’s spinning multi-level set seems to dance with the performers, and Oliver Fenwick’s extraordinary giant ring of lights begins upright, like the nearby London Eye, and later tilts to create an eerie prison.

The epilogue welcomes the God of Theatre into the National, a place where, the show argues, we can and should confront the big ideas of the day through stories. It’s a hell of a mic drop, and I for one can’t wait to see what else Rubasingham has in store.

Bacchae is at the National Theatre to 1 November. Book Bacchae tickets on LondonTheatre.co.uk

Photo credit: Bacchae (Photos by Marc Brenner)