How in (a Greek) gods name can the Rude Mechs re-create Dionysus in 69 in 9?
“Dionysus taught me everything I know.” In making this statement to the crowd in the lobby of the B. Iden Payne Theatre last week, Richard Schechner could well have been referring in shorthand to Dionysus in 69, the groundbreaking experimental adaptation of The Bacchae that he created with the Performance Group 41 years ago. That was the subject of his talk, and it certainly ranks as a watershed project for him as a director. But it’s equally valid to interpret his reference as being to the man-deity himself, whose actions propel Euripides’ tragedy. After all, as Schechner described him to the assembled that evening, Dionysus is a god of dancing, free sexuality, revelry, and ecstasy, and all of those elements have informed Schechner’s theatrical work and were part of what made Dionysus in 69 such a revolutionary and influential work in American theatre. The Performance Group production gleefully took a sledgehammer to the fourth wall that kept audiences comfortably separated from the a
