You Cannot Ban “The Bacchae”

Given our recent posts here on Ancient Greek Comedy and several others on pagan holidays and their relevance to theatre, I was very happy to get a press release about a new, free production of The Bacchae being presented in the New York Euripides Summer Festival tonight through Friday (June 30). Dionysus and his alter ego Bacchus get a lot of play in my book No Applauseand here on Travalanche, but thus far we’ve done no dedicated post to the God of the Theatre! And the Dionysia, the annual festival that became the Western (i.e. European) theatre’s birthplace was a spring festival, generally held in March/April, when I was doing a cluster of related posts, so we feel like it’s past time to give the give the Devil his Due.

That said, like all topics in mythology the one at hand is murky. I always find that I am prevented from plunging more deeply into classical mythology than I would like due to the fact that it is not standardized. There is no “canon” containing finite characters and authoritative stories. The Gods and their myths evolved at indeterminate, even prehistoric dates. Gods have multiple names, multiple identities. Or sometimes there are multiple Gods with the same name, and no one is quite certain if they are meant to be the same one. There are Dionysus, Dionysus Eleutherios, Bacchus, Iacchus, Liber Pater, which all seem to be identified with one another. Nietzsche (who wrote about the God in The Birth of Tragedy) and his contemporaries assumed the stories of this God were imported from Thrace (modern day Bulgaria) and beyond in Anatolia, land of the Hittites (modern Turkey) because the myths tell of the God coming to Greece from that region, and he is not included among the 12 Olympians who are usually bundled together as the principal ones. It was commonly concluded that Dionysus evolved later than the other ones. But recent research suggests that worship of some form of this God dates all the way back to Minoan Crete, at least to 1500 B.C. That’s nearly the end of the Bronze Age, though, a relatively advanced period in human evolution. But while the oldest proofs may date from that time, it seems logical to me that the God’s origins are far more ancient and from even farther East. The cultivation of wine in the West begins in the Caucasus as early as 6000 B.C. and Dionysus is the God of wine. Doesn’t it make sense that wine and the God who governs it would evolve together? It may make sense, but no one knows for sure yet.

There are also sites further East in Persia and India associated with the God. In modern Afghanistan is a site called (among other things) Nysa (as in Dios + Nysa, i.e. God of Nysa or Zeus of Nysa, i,e, Dionysus) and also even Dionysopolis. The lore was that as an infant the God was cared for by nymphs called Nysads. By there’s nothing conclusive. The Hittites referred to themselves as the Nesi, as well, and that too sounds like it could be the source of the name. And the same goes for Bacchus and Liber Pater, and all of these other alter egos. Some such as the latter have their origins in Rome and were sort of merged with Dionysus on account of their common mandates. Being the God of wine also meant being the God of intoxication, fertility, license, insanity, the irrational, sexuality, merrymaking, and performance. In addition to grapes and other fruits, he is also very much associated with goats, much like Satyrs and Fauns and the demi-God Pan.

Bacchus, Dionysus etc were at the center of several secret mystery cults, and several annual celebrations, the Dionysia, the Bacchanalia and so forth. The most notorious observances are remembered in the imagery we associate with those terms: rampant drunkenness, nudity, group sex, and even the tearing apart and eating of live animals (see postcard above). The prevalence of that kind of thing was no doubt exaggerated by the Christians who later came along and condemned pagan beliefs and traditions, and are responsible for the modern association of goat imagery with Satanism and “the devil”. But even the more subdued traditions might strike modern observers as prohibitively obscene. The rural Dionysia which began as an annual tradition around 600 B.C. involved a procession in which participants carried loaves of bread, baskets of flowers, jugs of wine, and…phalluses.

Starting in the 5th century A.D. at the Theater of Dionysus, near the Acropolis, ritual songs and dances by masked participants began to evolve into what we recognize as drama. Annual contests were held, and this is where the tragedy, or “goat song” began. There were hundreds of Greek playwrights, though only a few of the plays of tragedians Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides survive. Later came the comedy, as described here.

All manner of Greek myths were fodder for the tragedies; they weren’t all about Bacchus. But it just so happens that The Bacchae is, and it also happens to be my favorite play. It shows the dangers of not taking humanity’s bestial side into account. Pentheus, King of Thebes snubs Bacchus, much to his cost. The God and his followers invade anyway, bringing about a citywide madness that proves the destruction of Pentheus. There’s something timeless and wise about it. Periodically, forces of reform and Puritanism try to organize people into systems that allow no place for the human need to let off steam. But those forces will not be denied. The Pagans sensibly tried to account for that aspect of human behavior and incorporated it right into their society and their religion. A Deal with the Devil, if you will. There is a certain sense to carving out a place in your culture for nonsense.

For a time, as I wrote in No Applause, Christians tried to outlaw theatre, in part because of its sinful Pagan associations. In time, plays on religious themes were permitted during the Medieval era. During the time of Elizabeth I, the art form both liberalized and professionalized. The Puritans outlawed it again, but then it came back again. You cannot ban pleasure. You can make a law against it, but such laws can only backfire. Such is the nature of humanity.

Anyway, thanks to the American Thymele Theatre for mounting the present production. Info on performances here.

For more on this topic, please see my book No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous.