Theban Cycle (review)

As part of the Epidaurus Festival 2002 (in the context of the Hellenic Cultural Olympiad 2001-2004) the Theban Cycle was presented by the Düsseldorf Schauspielhaus at the Ancient Theatre of Epidaurus July 19-20 with a production of four inter-connected Greek plays: The Bacchae by Euripides, Oedipus Rex by Sophocles, Seven Against Thebes by Aeschyles, and Antigone by Sophocles. In anticipation of the Greek performances the Theban Cycle was produced in its entirety in Düsseldorf June 27-30, 2002—one tragedy each evening—in the Industriehalle, a seventy-by-seventy-by-twelve meter hall that once served as a tram and bus factory.

The scene designer for the Theban Cycle, Jannis Kounellis, created a circular performance area intended to heighten what he believes to be the plays' confrontation with an exploded world, rather than to mirror classic Greek theatre structure. The performance area was twenty-three yards in diameter, dotted with structural and scenic pillars enclosed by a circle of twenty-four iron disks. The skene was not present, and the orchestra was the stage itself. The maximum five hundred member audience was seated in two tiered bleachers facing each other with the circular performance area between them.

Generally, in the first two Cycle plays the entire enclosure was used as a stage with predominant use of the diagonal, de-emphasising the circular shape of the stage area; addititionally, the acting space was extended beyond the outer circle of disks, at least for the supernumerary actors. In the latter two Cycle plays, the center of this circular enclosure was emphasised through the creation of a focal center—a bell and central circle of dirt and grass in Seven Against Thebes, and a holding pen with ladders for aliens and transients in Antigone.

Production of the Theban Cycle was viewed by the key figures involved in the project as an act of resistance against the destruction of democracy and individuality in our modern times. Therefore, the dramaturg of Düsseldorf's Schauspielhaus Frank Raddatz, who first conceived of the project, assembled an international team of directors known for provocative and radical productions of Greek tragedy. Theodoros Terzopoulos of Greece directed the Bacchae. Although he is the president of the International Theatre Olympiad Committee, Terzopoulos came to Germany in his role as founder of the ATTIS Theatre in Athens, where special methods for acting in Greek tragedies are constantly being perfected. Tadashi Suzuki of Japan was chosen to direct Oedipus Rex. Suzuki is known both as president of the Japanese Performing Arts Foundation and as the director of the Shizuoka Performing Arts Center. Valery Fokin of Russia, the head of the Meyerhold Arts Centre in Moscow, directed Seven Against Thebes. Antigone was directed by Anna Badora of Poland, a former student at Vienna's Max Reinhardt Seminar, who has been associated with Düsseldorf's Schauspielhaus since 1996.

Each play went through a two month rehearsal period during which each director developed the production concept with the actors, who came from Düsseldorf's Schauspielhaus as well as from the Essen and other nearby theatre schools. Several actors appeared in multiple works, often in the same role, so as to enhance the interrelationships between productions that were otherwise marked by distinctive concepts and costume designs. Götz Argus appeared in three of the four plays, first as Teiresias in the Bacchae, then as Oedipus in Oedipus Rex, and again as Oedipus in Seven Against Thebes. Fatih Cevikkollu played the role of Dionysus in the Bacchae and the role of the Messenger in both Seven Against Thebes and Antigone. Pentheus in the Bacchae, Martin Schneider also played the role of the Guard in Antigone. And the role of Antigone was played by the same actress, Esther Hausmann, in both Seven Against Thebes and Antigone.

The Bacchae was interpreted not as literature, of which Terzopoulos is suspect, but as units of rhythm, and his preoccupation was to search out mythic images of internal rhythm in the...