Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre will soon be putting on The Lighting Child, which sounds set to be a mixed up reworking of Athenian playwright Euripides’ tragedy Bacchae. Blurring the imagined time and space between the solid stone of ancient Thebes on the banks of the Nile in Egypt and modern day London, the play brings classical myth alive with an up-to-date remix in the capital city.
Opening at the Globe Theatre on the 14th September 2013, the production brings the hedonism and retribution fueled story to London’s West End with a run that continues until the 12th October 2013. Ticket prices range between £15 and £39 in the Lower, Middle and Upper Gallery and just £5 for standing tickets in the Globe’s Yard. Opening times are predominantly at 7:30pm, but there are also a couple of 6:30pm productions, a couple of 1pm Sunday matinee shows and a closing 2pm Saturday matinee on the 12th October 2013. For more details on tickets and times, visit https://tickets.shakespearesglobe.com/selecteics.asp.
The Lightning Child is an adaptation of Euripides’ Bacchae, set in either London or Thebes, whichever you’re imagination fits best. With a celebration in full swing honouring Dionysus – the Greek god of the grape harvest, wine-making, wine, ritual madness and ecstasy (known as Bacchus in Roman mythology) – worshipers are whipped up into a frenzy of wild religious rites. However, Pentheus (the young king of Thebes in the original) wants to put a stop to the cavorting frivolities, while drug addicts Drax and Shug and musician Louise and her flatmate Antonia cavort on to crazed tragic retribution of their own.
Written by Ché Walker and Arthur Darvill, the play is being directed by Matthew Dunster, who previously directed Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, his adaptation of Alan Sillitoe’s 1958 novel, starring Tamla Kari (Cuckoo). Walker and Dunster worked together previously on their 2008/09 production, The Frontline, which also illuminated the range of material performed at the Globe Theatre.
The cast includes Clifford Samuel (Sex And Drugs And Rock And Roll) as Pentheus, Tommy Coleman as Dionysus, Jess Murphy (Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street) as Louisa and Geoff Aymer as Cadmus/Lester Young.
Expect some pretty strong language on stage at the Globe for The Lightning Child as well as some fairly robust themes including the nature of debauchery, issues of drug abuse and some light cross-dressing. It’ll be interesting to see how they construct this present day blurring adaptation of the classical tragedy, as Euripides’ original gets pretty gruesome at times with Pentheus getting torn limb from limb by his own family under the spell of the Bacchae. However, it’s bound to be a vivid and unconventional production when it hits the stage in September.
