In The Bacchae: A Tragedy in One Act, King Pentheus of Thebes rules with utmost order and control until the god Dionysus arrives and swiftly builds a following of wild and unrepressed revelers called the Bacchae. When Pentheus refuses to recognize Dionysus’s divinity and lineage, how long will a young, confident, and savage god show patience toward mortal arrogance? Kneehigh Theatre originally adapted Euripides’s Greek tragedy in this play with music about the reclamation of identity and the consequences of oppressive rule, further adapted by director Sarah Gazdowicz to explore her dual identities of Polish and Peruvian and what it means to be biracial but not pass as either identity in the modern world.  

​University of Iowa, Fall 2022