‘Bacchae: Reboot’ Ancient greek theater to a modern stage

FRANCESCA BOSTON lifestyles editor

With a minimal set, loud costumes and a completely original script, “Bacchae: Reboot” opened for its world premiere Wednesday night.

Honors Professor Eric Ruckh, currently serving as interim dean of Library and Information Services, was a co-writer for the show along with Theater and Dance Chair Chuck Harper. Ruckh said the show has been in the works since 2019, when the two had worked together on another play adaptation. The show was a collaboration between the honors program and theater department, with an honors 320A class led by Ruckh and Harper, which aims to break down what tragedy is.

“It was a collaboration of honors and theater; the class was on tragedy and the actors were invited to class at the start of the semester and helped create conversation in class, while the honors students provided the advantage of being an outsider,” Ruckh said.

Pop culture references are used throughout the show such as Family Feud, which helps the audience understand conflict between the Thebes family.

Ruckh said they began working on the script back in Fall 2022 and finalized it by spring break. He said the script focuses on the psychological ideas of power and human nature.

“There is a debate about the nature of power, about legitimate power, and also what it means to be good,” Ruckh said.

Senior Alexis Houston was part of the honors 320A class and is one of the narrators for the textscape, a spoken word document that several of the class members will read as the audience arrives for the show. She said the class went through all their readings for the semester and pulled out phrases that would help set the mood of the show.

“Most shows have a soundscape, like music, but because it’s a play, there is a textscape instead. We read lines that we have selected from tragedy we read throughout the semester that help set the narrative for the show,” Houston said.

Senior Garron Orozco, a theater performance major from Houston, Texas, who plays Cadmus and Piss Boy, said that one of the exciting things about the show is the devising aspect, creating a show out of themes and morals and then writers, cast and other creative use their own interpretation and build a show from the ground up.

“I feel like this show specifically really shows you what devising can be. Because every other scene is a new genre,” Orozco said. “We have musicals, we have serious numbers, we have pure Greek tragedy… and it’s all this huge spectrum,” Orozco said.

Sophomore Astra Megyesi, a theater major from Denver, Colorado, plays Agave. They said the show can be a bit hard to follow sometimes and that one watch isn’t always enough, but it’s wonderful once it clicks.

“Once you do start to understand it, everything kind of clicks and starts coming together and creating this new environment, this new world that you become sucked into,” Megyesi said.

Ruckh said the show was inspired by some of his own experiences as a queer man, but he also drew inspiration from poets and authors for many of the ensemble scenes.

“Anne Carson has helped me understand the weirdness and strangeness of the Greek world. Jorie Graham, a contemporary American poet, uses Greek mythology to explore big ideas, and Madeline Miller, who shows that Greek mythology can be emotionally resonating,” Ruckh said.

The show opened on April 19 and will run through April 23. Tickets can be purchased online and are free with a valid SIUE student ID card.