Bacchae, The

In The Bacchae, Euripides shows the disastrous consequences of challenging a superior power.  Young Pentheus (Kenneth Garson), governor of Thebes, is alarmed by the appearance of a new religion, which promotes orgiastic revelries in the woods and especially corrupts his city's women.  His entire family, including grandfather Cadmus (Glenn B. Stoops) and mother Agave (Leah Herman) plus blind psychic Tiresias (Barry Ford), has adopted the cult.  Not seeing that he might be outnumbered, Pentheus calls in Dionysus (the Greek equivalent for Bacchus, played by Sam Mercer).  Interrogation ends with a death sentence, but demi-god Dionysus magically escapes from prison.  In this version he then graciously escorts Pentheus (now in drag, to the derision of the Thebans) to join the revelers.  Dionysus momentarily tricks Agave and the women into thinking that a wild boar has come to menace them, and they furiously tear Pentheus apart to their later horror. Director Sheila updated the social conflict to the era when Christianity was the official religion and surviving pagan rituals were a menace to the establishment. 

The women's chorus of Bacchae enters in black (costumes by Sheila Marie Westfall) but quickly sheds to skimpy halters and tight pants to show off choreographer Josephine Dorado's gyrations in the raised arbor space above the main playing area. Morgan's hip-hop-style rhyming text here never seems forced, and the prose language she uses in the remainder is carefully matched for tone and mood.  Her direction emphasizes the Pentheus-Dionysus personality clash and draws some fine performances from the participants.  Only Leah Herman as Agave disappoints, because of overacting during the final lament over her son's death.  Jonathan Heller and Robert Madden provide an inspired accompaniment on a battery of drums.

As of this writing, the La Plaza Cultural performing space is scheduled to fall victim to the Mayor's rolling gentrification program -- a pity, because the terraced rock wall is ideal for outdoor theater.  This performance was well attended: at curtain time there was not a single seat to be had.  Maybe it crossed Morgan's mind to remake Pentheus into a petty extirpator of quality of life infractions and the Bacchae a contingent for the Million Mambo March.