The Bacchae

The Bacchae is an independent film adaptation of Euripides' play The Bacchae, produced by Lorenda Starfelt and John Morrissey, and directed by Brad Mays. Production The Bacchae was shot in the autumn of 2000, three years after director Brad Mays' highly successful, award-nominated theatrical production of Euripides' play at the Complex in Los Angeles. Originally conceived on a larger scale than what eventually went into production, the film suffered tremendously from budget cuts and artistic differences, most particularly between the director and co-producer John Morrissey (American History X). Story Having established his divinity in eastern lands, Dionysus - the god of wine - returns to Thebes, land of his birth as well as his mortal mother Semele's horrible and shameful death. Angered over his homeland's refusal to acknowledge his divine nature, the son of Zeus intends to establish the worship which he insists is now his due. Having put a spell on all the local women, a great celebration of dance and wine takes place in the nearby Glens of Cithaeron, attended even by the former king Cadmus and blind prophet Teiresias. When word of this outlandishness reaches Pentheus, the young and rational King of Thebes, he orders the immediate arrest of the blonde stranger responsible for the mayhem. Unaware that his strange prisoner is a god, Pentheus refuses to even consider the possibility that Bacchic worship has a place in the modern world. Unable to endure such an affront, the god Dionysus casts a spell over the young king and leads him into the mountains, where he is ultimately torn limb from limb by the ecstatic worshippers, whose number now includes Pentheus' own mother, Agave. Background