The last New York staging of The Bacchae was at the 2008 Lincoln Center Festival, with Alan Cumming playing a flamboyant Dionysus in the National Theatre of Scotland production. The problem is that it breezed in and out of the city so quickly that many theatergoers missed the opportunity to see the adapted classic.

Jonathan Groff as bad boy Dionysus with Anthony Mackie, a young, arrogant Pentheus in The Public Theater production of The Bacchae, by Euripides. Photo by Joan Marcus

In this current show, Jonathan Groff headlines as Dionysus, the “bad boy” of Mount Olympus. He’s ideally cast as the god of the vine who has come to Thebes to introduce its citizens to his intoxicating brew. Groff looks like a goldilocked Adonis, complete with hip jeans and a leather jacket. Incognito for much of the story, Groff’s Dionysus surreptitiously aims to convert the minds of any Thebans—including his royal cousin Pentheus—who doubt Zeus is his father. And he has an uphill battle. Rumors have spread that his mother fabricated her story about Zeus impregnating her. Worse, she was struck dead by lightning (Hera’s revenge for her husband’s philandering) before his birth. Out of pity, Zeus implanted Dionysus into his own thigh, carrying him to full-term.

In this trim production, Akalaitis mixes dance, mime, speech and song in service to the ultimate god: narrative. She deftly guides us through the old story, translated by Nicholas Rudall, using broad dramatic strokes that delineate the plot and characters without mummifying them. In short, she steers clear of making this a pious exercise, or bogging us down with reverential rituals.

To be sure, the evening belongs to Groff, playing the young Dionysus with a fierce vengeance and a quicksilver mind. His performance in Broadway’s Spring Awakening, which netted a 2007 Tony nomination, and in the Delacorte’s Hair last year were impressive. This time he truly comes into his own as a thespian, quite capable of undertaking a classic Greek role and giving it a contemporary spin. His most stunning moment is when he appears above the “palace” triumphantly gloating over the death of his cousin Pentheus, who has been ripped apart unknowingly by his mother and The Bacchants (he was spying on their revels, dressed as a woman). It’s a bravura show-off speech—and Groff rightly plays it to the hilt.

Like many productions at the Public Theatre, the casting here is colorblind. Anthony Mackie plays the young, arrogant Pentheus, and Joan Macintosh plays his mother, Agave. Other actors featured are Andre De Shields as the blind prophet Teiresias, George Bartenieff as Cadmus, and Karen Kandel as the Chorus Leader. There’s no weak link in this cast. And, incidentally, the dozen actors in the Chorus (all female) are more than just voices embellishing the narrative. In fact, they are really the living theatrical glue that fuses the tragic event into a whole.

John Conklin’s set is as minimalist as it gets: an expanse of open stage with ultra-modern bleacher seats that ominously—and significantly—slope downward. In fact, there’s a late scene that registers with incredible pathos, in which the old prophet Teiresias re-enters the stage, and silently seats himself on a low bleacher as Cadmus drags in the corpse of his grandson Pentheus wrapped in a bloodstained sheet. The visual images, stage business and the idea of Fate powerfully coalesce in this episode and poignantly express the tragedy.

Philip Glass’ original music envelops the production in his famous “sonic weather.” His modern score never overstates itself, but one can detect its haunting presence in each pivotal scene. Kaye Voyce’s costumes for the Chorus go a little overboard with their flaming orange colors and exotic look. They look a bit too sensational next to the modern dress of Dionysus and Pentheus.

To pin down precisely what this drama means is slippery—and it would also diminish the greatness of Euripides’ masterpiece. Suffice it to say that the tragedy can remind us that passion, however destructive it can be in the extreme, is still a sacred part of the human psyche. Moreover, an excess of law-and-order (think of Pentheus’ perverted leadership in Thebes) is just another term for fascism.

One senses that Akalaitis has not only cracked the code of Euripides’ work but has managed to give us a production that whets our appetite for more Greek drama. No doubt this show will be hard to beat.
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The Bacchae
At the Delacorte Theater in Central Park
Through Aug. 30
For free tickets, call 212-967-7555;
limited number of free tickets through a Virtual Line, available at
www.publictheater.org

Andre De Shields says Greek drama requires huge emotions from actors.

Q: How did you get involved with The Bacchae?

A: JoAnne Akalaitis, who is the director of The Bacchae, contacted my agent through the casting directors of the Public Theater, and said something terribly flattering—“I’ve always wanted to work with Andre De Shields.” So we set up a meeting, and JoAnne and I met, and we got along wickedly well.

Q: Most people identify you with big musicals like The Full Monty, The Wiz and Ain’t Misbehavin. Do you feel at home with Greek drama?

A: Yes, I do. One of the reasons why I work as well as I do, and as often as I do, is because I have a big soul. I have an old soul, and a big soul. I have a capacious soul, large—larger-than-life. And Greek drama is about that bigness. It’s about huge emotions. Greeks are known for their tragedies and not their comedies. It is always a situation of the rational mind of man in conflict with the capricious nature of the gods. And man never wins.

Q: When we spoke a few years back about your Lear in The Classical Theatre of Harlem’s 2006 production, you said that you experienced a coup de foudre one night that jolted you into a deeper understanding of your character. Have you had any equivalent “strokes of lightning” with your character Tiresias?

A: Well, yes, indeed I have. Because the stereotypical approach to a prophet, or a blind oracle, is to go for the esoteric or the mysticism, the heightened emotion and speech. But the thunderbolt, or the stroke of lightning, that went off in my head concerning Tiresias was, he’s a very ordinary kind of guy, he goes into these trances when he is possessed by the spirit of the Divine, and can reveal information that he doesn’t particularly understand. You know, it’s a burden being a prophet because no one knows where you are coming from. Not least of all, yourself. You are a tool, you are a channel.

Q: What is in the pipeline for you?

A: I did in February for Black History Month a solo performance of a piece [Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory; From Douglass to Deliverance] written and researched by myself based on the life of Frederick Douglass. And it was seen by Wendy Taucher, who is the artistic director at The Yard in Chilmark on Martha’s Vineyard. The Yard is a Performing Arts College. And she has invited me to bring the piece there immediately after The Bacchae closes on August 30. After that, I’m going down to Atlanta to the Alliance Theatre, where I am going to be performing in David Mamet’s A Life in the Theatre. From the Greeks to Mamet. That is a real leap of faith.

* Interview has been condensed and edited.

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The Bacchae
runs Tuesday through Sunday,
Aug. 11 to 30 at 8 p.m. at
The Delacorte Theater in Central Park. Tickets are free; for more information, call 212-539-8750 or visit www.publictheater.org.