Bacchae

What happens when a city denies a god his due? Devastation follows. CFCC’s Department of Commercial, Fine, and Performing Arts presents Bacchae by Euripides—a 2,400-year-old Greek tragedy that explores power, pleasure, and the dangerous consequences of repression.

Dionysus (aka Bacchus), son of Zeus and the mortal Semele, returns to his birthplace of Thebes to claim his rightful place as a god by entrancing his female followers, the Bacchae, into a primal frenzy. But Pentheus, the newly crowned ruler of Thebes and Dionysus’s cousin, has banned all Dionysian worship and threatens the freedom of any citizen who participates in these Bacchic rituals, including his own mother.

Written over 2,000 years ago, Bacchae remains a hauntingly relevant tale about the devastation that happens when those in power attempt to control and manipulate the very people they are meant to protect.