Word: dionysus
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...antithesis of the individual and the crowd." It was Sophocles, too, who had Antigone affianced to Creon's son Haemon. Other changes, too, were rung in antiquity. For instance, in Euripides' Antigone, of which only parts survive, a tragic outcome was avoided through the outlandish intercession of the god Dionysus, and, incredibly, Antigone and Haemon were happily married. So a strong tradition of artistic license existed from the beginning...
Carl Nagin as Dionysus is brilliant within the context of the interpretation. He succeeds in breaking up lines written in the fifth century B. C. with cigarette smoke, a feat that demonstrates Babe's modernizing at its most effective...
Where The Bacchae is less than successful, it is because of a few uncomfortable performances. The Bacchae themselves--Asian women who follow Dionysus--are a mixed lot. As Pentheus, Jim Shuman gives an uneven, never quite powerful enough performance; but he does convey the weakness of mind and irritability of Thebes' mortal ruler...
...Babe has directed the part, however, Pentheus is more than irritable--he is mad. So it means very little for him to fall under the spell of Dionysus as he has no rationality to be deprived of. At the start Pentheus should provide a sane, if angered, resistance to the god. In the Agassiz production he can only spit inanities...
...original. Babe has not been so carried away with the modern parallel as to seriously distort the play, and in the second half he seems to have kept his modernizing to a minimum. Thus the limitation of the fascist parallel--its lack of a modern alternative into which Dionysus can fit--is never fully exposed, because the interpretation is correctly underplayed...