The Bacchae
★★★☆☆ Ethereal
Assembly Roxy (Venue 139): Thur 31 Jul – Sun 24 Aug 2025
Review by Rebecca Mahar
Glasgow-based Company of Wolves come howling into the Fringe with The Bacchae, a solo retelling of the myth of Dionysos, playing at Assembly Roxy for a full run.
Written and performed by company joint Artistic Director Ewan Downie, The Bacchae is based on Euripides’s late 5th century BCE play of the same name.
Initially developed in 2023, Company of Wolves invested deeply in the linguistic and dramaturgical aspects of their adaptation, collaborating with Dr. Michael Carroll, Ancient Greek Specialist and Creative Consultant at the University of St. Andrews.
Ewan Downie, in The Bacchae. Pic Louise Mather
The initial performances having been directed by the late Ian Spink, Heather Knudtsen helms this year’s remounted production.
An Ancient Greek invocation opens The Bacchae, Downie appearing in the centre of the hazy stage in stark and shadowy light, singing in what first amounts to a whisper, but soon grows strident. “Dionysos is here in Thebes,” he proclaims when the invocation has finished, “A god of many names. This is where he was born. This is where his mother died.”
Like many figures in Ancient Greek mythology, Dionysos was (in this version of his origin myth) the child of Zeus and a mortal woman: Semele, daughter of the king of Thebes. When Semele makes Zeus swear to do as she asks and then requests to see his true form, she is obliterated by the sight. But Zeus saves the undeveloped spark from within her that would become Dionysos, sewing it into his thigh to gestate.
an intelligent condensation
The Bacchae relates this origin tale, the rejection of Dionysos by his mortal family, how his cousin Pentheus grew into the throne of Thebes, and his own eventual return and vengeance upon the Thebans for turning him away. Downie embodies each of the named characters as he weaves the tale, as well as the chorus: the Bacchae of the title, Dionysos’s cult of Maenads.
The text is an intelligent condensation of Euripides’s original, ably navigated by Downie. As well-condensed as The Bacchae is, however, there are a few places where the script feels a bit unbalanced, with either too much or too little time spent in certain moments that cause a bit of whiplash in the transitions in and out of them, and temporary losses of clarity in the story.
Ewan Downie, in The Bacchae. Pic Louise Mather
As Dionysos is a god of many names, so Downie holds the many players of the story in his body and his voice, emerging from his blank slate of a slip-clad form when they are needed. Downie’s physical performance ranges from compelling stillness to possessed orgiastic writhing, making the most of the Upstairs space at the Roxy and the largely empty stage.
Downie’s only companions on the stage are four wheeled metal racks, which are diagonally crossed within by colour-changing tubular lights, which also appear on the floor at the stage’s edge as footlights. The lighting design, by Katharine Williams, is clever and atmospheric, full of shadows that heighten the mythical feel of the space.
anachronistic
Alisa Kalyanova’s set design, however, doesn’t lend itself particularly well to the show— the racks are anachronistic to the piece despite its otherwise void like setting, serving no purpose other than to hold the lights and the large red rope with which Downie wraps himself in the piece; shiny oddities drawing attention in the background. The choice of a large plastic bottle to hold the water which comes into play near the end of The Bacchae is also odd and distracting, an inharmonious note in the song of the play.
These choices aside, as well as the script not making as much as it could have of its promise to “blur the line between binaries,” The Bacchae is a compelling monodrama that reformulates an ancient classic in new and interesting ways, showing great promise and the kind of experimentation that Company of Wolves is known for.
Running time: 55 minutes (no interval).
Assembly Roxy (Upstairs), 2 Roxburgh Place EH8 9SU (Venue 139).
Thur 31 July – Sun 24 August 2025.
Daily (Not Sun 3, Mons 11&18): 12 noon.
Tickets and details: Book here on EdFringe.com.
Book here on EdFest.com.*
*affiliate link.
Company of Wolves website: companyofwolves.org
Facebook: @companyofwolves
Instagram: @companywolves
YouTube: @CompanyWolves
Linktree: @companywolves
ENDS
