The Bacchae (1973) poster

Poster designed by Ken Briggs. Into his vivid and colloquial version of Euripides’ Bacchae Wole Soyinka weaved aspects of his native Nigerian culture. His identification of Dionysus with the Yoruba deity Ogun led him make a fascinating change to the play’s conclusion: in Euripides’ version the play ends with Agave coming to her senses and seeing the disembodied head of her son, a head she had moments before torn from his body and triumphantly spitted - in divinely induced frenzy she had thought him a lion cub. Soyinka sustains the scene, as blood seems to run from the severed head Tiresias and Cadmus look on: “Again blood, Tiresias, nothing but blood,” to which Tiresias replies “No it's wine” – and so Agave and the chorus exultantly drink of the red fountain; Soyinka’s version is subtitled “A communion rite”. Although the National Theatre commissioned Soyinka the production’s director, Roland Joffe, made significant changes to his text leading Soyinka to complain bitterly of the production, it was very poorly received.