Bertie Carvel keeps finding himself torn — locked in a battle between the rational and the irrational. Currently, it’s because he’s in rehearsals for Bakkhai, a fresh, modern translation of Euripides’ tragedy by poet Anne Carson, part of the Almeida Theatre’s Greeks season. Carvel plays Pentheus, ruler of Thebes, who refuses to acknowledge the god Dionysos — played by Ben Whishaw — who has inspired the women of the city to go “off to have a rave on a mountain,” as Carvel puts it. Driven out of his wits by Dionysos, the uptight Pentheus goes spy on them, dressing up as a lady himself. But the god’s followers, the female Bakkhai, find him and literally tear him apart. Continue reading “Bertie Carvel on playing a Greek King – and his own mother”
Tag: Greek tragedy
Queens of Syria: a modern retelling of Euripides’s The Trojan Women by female victims of the Syrian civil war
“I have a scream I have to let out – I want the world to hear it.” So says Suad, a young Syrian woman who fled her homeland for Jordan. It’s one of the most powerful moments in a new documentary, Queens of Syria, which follows a 2013 theatre project run with Syrian refugee women in the Jordanian capital, Amman, to stage a new version of Euripides’s tragedy, The Trojan Women. Continue reading “Queens of Syria: a modern retelling of Euripides’s The Trojan Women by female victims of the Syrian civil war”
Rupert Goold and Robert Icke on the Almeida’s Greeks season and their creative spark
Meet Rupert and Robert: the former is one of Britain’s most feted theatre directors, the latter one of its most fast-rising. Continue reading “Rupert Goold and Robert Icke on the Almeida’s Greeks season and their creative spark”