In 2023 the Soyinka READS was part of the annual meeting of the Classical Association of New England (with thanks to Dominic Machado). In 2019, Eos hosted a discussion of this play at the annual meeting of the Classical Association of the Atlantic States (plans for other sessions that academic year were disrupted by COVID-19).

As Soyinka says: “ The Bacchae belongs to that sparse body of plays which evoke awareness of a particular moment in a people’s history, yet imbue that moment with a hovering, eternal presence.” The play’s emphasis on ritual sparagmos has recently been analyzed by Justine McConnell as a model for thinking about Classical Reception as a destructive-creative process of ripping apart and re-membering, particularly in the African Diaspora. Soyinka was a Nigerian playwright, poet, novelist, and political activist, and the first African to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature (in 1986). Soyinka begins the Introduction to his adaptation of Euripidess The Bacchae by citing a passage from his essay 'The Fourth Stage' where 'the Phrygian god and his twinhood with Ogun' are presented to us in quite positive terms.

It makes perfect sense to see the fact that Soyinka was drawn to Euripidess play and that the National might wish to 'get on the bandwagon' with a contemporary Bacchae of their own as a serendipitous confluence. Wole Soyinkas The Bacchae of Euripides: A Communion Rite at The Ohio State University, 4-8 Nov. Wole Soyinka’s The Bacchae of Euripides: A Communion Rite (1973) weaves Yoruba mythology and contemporary political and social issues into Euripides’ play. Euripidess The Bacchae into Dionysos in 1969 for the Performance Group is one such example.

The bacchae of euripides wole soyinka