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The Ellis Theatre was transformed for the performance. All the seats were removed to make way for a large sand-filled circle surrounded by burning torches and while 150 or so had balcony seats or wooden benches, many more of the audience sat at the circle's edge or even stood to watch the action just feet away.
And what potent action it was, as the Bacchae of the title, a 15-strong Chorus of women "stung with the maddening trance of Dionysus", assailed the audience's senses in a series of wildly choreographed sequences.
Their witness of the god's power was a reminder that there is no reason to think of that god as a supernatural being with an external existence. Instead he is a personification of something common to all of us, an undeniably real aspect of the human psyche, that part of us that – for one reason or another, in one way or another – needs to let itself go.
When Pip Brignall, in a haunting performance as the 'god' of wildness, of the irrational, of intoxication, of battle rage and magical trance, clashed with James Blaszkowski as Pentheus, the rational, control-obsessed, force-dependent king who refuses to acknowledge him, those who opened their heads and truly experienced the play saw it for what it truly is: much more than a sensational story of outlandish events, it is a mythic dream-play, a blueprint of the working of conflicting sides of our mind.
But the dream is frequently a nightmare, and in two memorable scenes, Harry Scott as the Herdsman and Nick Codrington as the Messenger captivated the audience with their stories of the devastating events on the nearby mountain, before Seraphina d'Arby and Josh Allott as Agauë and Cadmus enacted the play's harrowing finale in which the truly merciless nature of the wild 'god' is shockingly revealed.
The play is no easy ride for audience or performers. It is disturbing, confrontational and challenging. But why shouldn't it be? And it's also engrossing and a visual feast.
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