The Globe website issues a warning about "filthy language" in this show. It should instead have flagged up "woeful drama", as this new musical based on The Bacchae is one of the worst evenings of the theatrical year.
Although the quality of Shakespeare productions has gone up and up during Dominic Dromgoole’s reign at the Globe helm, the record on new work has been a different issue.
We start, as you would, with Neil Armstrong. The novelty value of seeing space suits on Shakespeare’s stage quickly palls and a sinking feeling creeps in. Euripides’s powerful, haunting original clocks in at a sprightly 90-ish minutes but Ché Walker (book) and Arthur Darvill (composer) manage to string their self-indulgent muddle out to nearly three hours. Like some demented gang-show in hell, it goes on and on.
Not trusting Euripides to manage the narrative by himself, Walker and Darvill have surrounded the story of intransigent mortal Pentheus’s clash with the vengeful god Dionysus with all sorts of nonsense. There are lengthy scenes featuring heroin addicts in present-day London and two well-heeled young women in a flatshare. As if this weren’t enough, we then spin off to South African athlete Caster Semenya, before winding up with Billie Holiday.
The point, which we could have gathered in a 10th of the time, is that all were undone, Dionysus-style, by being unable to control their appetites. How egregiously the same pertains for Walker and Darvill here.
The impact of the original myth is entirely dissipated, not to mention sullied by Bette Bourne’s dreadful Teiresias constantly stating, “Thank f**k I’m blind”. Darvill’s ethereal music adds little to Matthew Dunster’s ragged production. “This is torture”, screams Agave (Finty Williams) at the end. We know precisely what she’s going through.
In rep until Oct 12 (020 7401 9919, shakespearesglobe.com)
