Bakkhai, Almeida.

Hair

The hair did the talking. Sometimes I liked what it said and sometimes I didn't.



Ben Whishaw's waist length hairpiece drew comparisons to Jesus and Chonchita Wurse from critics, but I was obsessed with that one strand. Having fringeless long hair myself,  I know how it works, if you leave a big old strand like that out of your ponytail you eventually end up dragging it behind your ear out of your face, because it is annoying. Dionysus did not do that. He flicked it away flat palmed with a flourish. This is the God of wanton abandon after all. Embrace that flyaway!

The Bacchae's hair on the other hand was saying all sorts of things. The initial refugee/traveller/glastonbury reveller types get-up was utterly negated by their hair and make up. There is no place for curling tongs in a field; you let your hair get greasy, you scrape it up in a bun. These girls looked fresh from getting their 10 by 8 headshot. I could see lipgloss and blusher and mascara. Their faces doing that misty eyed musical theatre thing. This was a 'wanton abandon' themed photo shoot as styled by Glamour.

Ring

Pentheus 'tell' was his fiddle with his wedding ring. A wife is never mentioned by anyone else. He never mentions one. A quick google search reveals a son and a grandson but Pentheus wife's name is unknown. It's a modern mans game to wear a ring, my father never wore one and neither did his. Why did Pentheus decide to wear a ring for his unmentioned, unnamed silent wife?

Ashes

Early on in the year, I went to see Toneelgroep's Medea in Amersterdam. The set was pure white and cavernous like the inside of Mike Tevee's TV set. In a coup de theatre in the second half black ash begins to fall from the ceiling forming an enormous pile in the centre of the stage within which Medea and the children she has killed are buried. The image is messy and visceral. In this set ash was sprinkled on stage using a plastic bag that poor old Ben Whishaw had to do before a speech about his escape from Pentheus. The effect was not the same.

Acting

The actors had to work hard and they were bloody good. Ben Whishaw is beautiful, we know this, Simon Amstell knows this. You want to watch him. He looks incredible in a bias cut leather pelt dress. Bertie Carvel has, in some ways, the harder role. I know that acting as if you are half God, trying to suggest some sense of otherness beyond your body, should be harder. However as Pentheus, you have to play the loser and lose status as each scene goes on, until eventually your character has changed completely. Then he has to play Agave, he really does change completely. Which, I've I'm honest, was a little bit panto.

Bias Cut

The leather pelt dresses, transformational on Ben, silly looking on the ladies.

Men and women

Think it was a little bit about the difference between them.

God

Didn't come out to well.

Spirituality vs control.

Could probably do with both.