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Austin360 blogs > Austin Arts: Seeing Things > Archives > 2009 > December > 09 > Entry
Review: ‘Dionysus in 69’
It easy, arguably, for today’s theater-goer to forget that so many of the conventions of contemporary performance — the improvised audience participation, the venues with no fixed seating and no ‘fourth wall’ between performance and audience, the changeable dramatic trajectory of each performance — were once new and shocking.
What was avant-garde 40 years ago seems so conventional now.
In an audacious move, Austin theater troupe the Rude Mechanicals has re-staged ‘Dionysus in 69,’ one of the most ground-breaking theatrical productions to come from the 1960s radical experiments in performance.
And the audacity pays off: This 2009 ‘Dionysus in ‘69’ is a keen, spirited, brilliantly acted paean to experimental theater past, present and future.
The original ‘Dionysus in 69’ — directed by Richard Schechner and created more or less collectively by The Performance Group — offered a radical new interpretation of Euripedes ‘The Bacchae.’ Schechner and his co-horts commandeered a garage in New York’s then-gritty Soho neighborhood for a theater space with no separation between audience and actors. Viewers perched on platforms made of two-by-fours or sat on the floor and were invited to join in on a Dionysian dance of ecstasy. Clothes were shed from actors and audience alike. Actors played themselves and their characters at the same time. And the narrative focus morphed depending on what happened between audience and actors.
Though based on an ancient Greek cautionary tale of the dangers of libertine living, ‘Dionysus in 69’ utterly epitomized its freedom-exploring era. Critics both praised and decried it. A young Brian De Palma filmed it. And Schechner’s self-coined term ‘environmental theater’ became academic nomenclature.
Boldly, the Rudes — easily Austin’s most sophisticated performance group — have re-created ‘Dionysus in 69’ using De Palma’s movie as a template and benefitting from Schechner’s temporary tenure in Austin as this year’s Cline Visiting Professor of UT’s Humanities Institute.
It’s impossible to know how accurate or ‘right’ the Rudes’ re-staging of the original production is. And in a way, it doesn’t ultimately matter. (Though at a recent screening of the De Palma film, the bold-talking Schechner declared the Rudes’ production ‘every bit as good’ as the original.)
What matters is that with their ‘Dionysus in 69,’ masterfully directed by Madge Darlington and Shawn Sides, the Rudes conjure up a spirit of revolution and playfulness that celebrates the zeitgeist that 40 years ago led to shape-shifting changes in theater practice.
An unflinchingly focused and creative ensemble makes this ‘Dionysus’ their own masterwork. And Thomas Graves as Dionysus/William Finley and Josh Meyer as Pentheus/Bill Shephard demonstrate how sophisticated risk-taking defines tour de force acting.
The Rudes’ re-staging of such a seminal work is vital to Austin’s arts scene. Performance is at the fore of so much creative output today, particularly in the visual arts. Yet, most of what is produced is so clearly ignorant of its own origins. Likewise, are arts audiences.
This ‘Dionysus in 69’ is required viewing.
‘Dionysus in 69’ continues 8 p.m. Thursdays-Sundays through Dec. 20. Off Center, 2211 Hidalgo St. www.rudemechs.com. Nudity and adult themes.
Photo by Kirk R. Tuck.
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