Reviews

Suzuki Tadashi's direction not only further expanded the possibilities of the stage created by Palladio, but it felt as though it had been specially crafted for the Teatro Olimpico with its unique form. ... The props consisted solely of six stylized chairs. The white-painted ascetics sat motionless. At times, the actors on stage maintained static poses, giving the impression that the images on the front of the stage (frons scaenae) had moved. ... In the splendidly lit Palladian space and the scenic device by Scamozzi, depicting a street in perspective, this performance transcended theatre and felt like a ritual. ...Thank you. This is a wonderful gift to the Teatro Olimpico, to Palladio, and to Vicenza.

Sipario

Over the past forty years, Mr. Suzuki has been at the forefront of experiments in intercultural dialogue. He has linked the great theatrical traditions of the world—ancient Greek tragedy, Shakespearean drama, and classical Russian works—with Japanese tradition. In his activities, ancient Greek tragedy holds an important place. The ancient Greeks believed that culture develops through encounters, i.e., dialogues between cultures, and Mr. Suzuki understood this well and embraced it as his conviction. It was precisely because of this belief that I met Mr. Suzuki Tadashi twenty-five years ago.

Theodoros Terzopoulos

Today, the show I saw was much like watching Noh. Stripped of all superfluous elements, it was concise and clear, and the stage overflowed with an unusual tension and concentration, from which the skeleton of the drama emerged distinctly. 

The main reason I thought of Noh was that this work spoke of the relationship between humans and the universe, possessing the most essential "phase" that Noh has achieved. To me, there seemed to be nothing else that theatre should speak about. Suzuki Tadashi reached the roots of theatre starting with The Bacchae.­­­

Tamotsu Watanabe

About Dionysus

The title Dionysus is taken from the name of the God of Wine, who appears in The Bacchae, Euripides' Greek tragedy.

In Suzuki's direction, the god Dionysus never appears on stage; instead, we see five monks in place of the god. The god Dionysus only exists in the minds of those who believe in him, and it is precisely those followers who murder Pentheus, the King of Thebes.

Suzuki's interpretation focuses on the idea that ancient religious wars were in fact wars caused by humans in the name of the gods. Within a chaos of cultural friction, we see poor Agave, blamed for the murder of her beloved son.

Credits

Based on the original text by Euripides

Director: Tadashi Suzuki

Cast:

Tian Chong as Pentheus

Chieko Naito as Agave

Jamaluddin Latif as Cadmus

Daisuke Ueta, Yasuhiro Fujimoto, Haruo Ishikawa, Yuki Iizuka, Kento Yamada as Priests of the Dionysus cult

Maki Saito, Risa Kito, Marie Shin as Bacchantes of the Dionysus cult

Assistant Director: Yoichi Takemori

Stage Manager: Michitomo Shiohara

Lighting: Makoto Niwa

Sound: Junya Kobayashi

Stage: Masaharu Kato, Yuichiro Hirano

Costumes: Toshimi Mitsuda, Atsuko Ogawa, Akari Hashizume

Interpreter: Fang Xin

Administrator: Yoshie Shigemasa

About Suzuki Tadashi

Suzuki Tadashi is the founder and director of the Suzuki Company of Toga (SCOT) based in Toga Village, located in the mountains of Toyama prefecture. He is the organizer of Japan’s first international theatre festival (Toga Festival) and the creator of the Suzuki Method of Actor Training.

Suzuki has articulated his theories in a number of books. A collection of his writings in English, Culture is the Body, is published by the Theatre Communications Group in New York. A Chinese translation, Culture is the Body is published by Shanghai Literary Publishing House. He has taught his system of actor training in schools and theatres throughout the world, including the Moscow Art Theatre, the Juilliard School in New York, the Shanghai Theatre Academy, and the Central Academy of Drama in Beijing. 

Suzuki has established in Toga one of the largest international theatre centers in the world.

About Suzuki Company of Toga (SCOT)

In 1976, Tadashi Suzuki relocated his theatre troupe, the Waseda Shogekijo—which for the previous ten years had spearheaded the new theatre movement in Japan—from its home in central Tokyo to Toga, a remote village in the mountains on the Sea of Japan coast. Working from a thatched-roof house, built in the traditional "praying hands" or gassho-zukuri style, which the group had converted into a theatre, they renamed themselves the Suzuki Company of Toga (SCOT). Since then, the site has grown into a complex of six theatres, lodgings, rehearsal rooms, and dining facilities, and is host to the annual SCOT Summer Season. SCOT also hosts a program aimed at professional theatre artists to learn the Suzuki Method of Actor Training and over one-hundred international participants visit Toga every year. Toga continues to serve as a center for creation, presentation, exchange and collaboration for artists around the world.