Written and Performed by Ewan Downie

Directed by Ian Spink

Review by Dominic Corr

Assembly Roxy

There’s a feral pulse running through The Bacchae at Assembly Roxy, a solo retelling that trades grandeur for grit, myth for muscle. Ewan Downie channels Dionysos with a raw, ritualistic intensity, conjuring gods and mortals alike in a performance that feels less like storytelling and more like summoning.

From the opening invocation—chanted in ancient Greek, no less—the air thickens with anticipation. Downie’s command of voice and body is formidable, shifting seamlessly between the divine and the doomed. His Dionysos is seductive and cruel, his Pentheus rigid and brittle, and his Agave heartbreakingly lost. The transitions aren’t always smooth, but they’re charged with intent, and the occasional stumble in pacing never undermines the overall arc.

The production’s visual language is stark and striking. Katharine Williams’ lighting design bathes the stage in pulses of colour and shadow, evoking both nightclub and temple. LED strips embedded in wheeled metal frames flicker like votive flames, casting Downie in silhouettes that feel almost mythic. Alisa Kalyanova’s set, though functional, leans industrial—its metal racks and plastic props occasionally clash with the timelessness of the text, but they also underscore the tension between the sacred and the profane.

Direction by Heather Knudtsen keeps the piece taut and ritualistic, allowing space for Downie’s storytelling to breathe while maintaining a sense of mounting dread. The dramaturgy flirts with binaries—man and god, reason and ecstasy, repression and release—but doesn’t always dig deep enough into those tensions. Still, the gestures toward transformation and transgression are potent, especially in moments where Downie’s physicality borders on the animalistic.

What lingers most is the atmosphere: thick with sweat, shadow, and suggestion. This is theatre that remembers its roots—not just in Euripides, but in the act of gathering, of witnessing, of surrendering to something older than logic. The Bacchae doesn’t aim for polish; it aims for possession. And in that, it succeeds. In a landscape often dominated by contemporary realism and comedic catharsis, The Bacchae stands apart—an ancient howl refracted through modern ritual. It’s fearless.

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