Blood and Wine: Soyinka's Bacchae as example of syncretic, circular and multidimensional theatre

Abstract

This paper is a summary of Wole Soyinka’s Bacchae of Euripides: A Communion Rite, a Nigerian dramatic rewriting from Euripides’Bacchae. This analysis which identifies the similarities and the inconsistencies between the ancient Greek myths and gods and the Yoruba cosmogony and rituals, will focus on the idea of drama as an ideal medium for social and political expression within a postcolonial space. The following aspects of Soyinka’s Bacchae will be taken under consideration: the relationship between the classical prototype and its Yoruba version (the re-contextualization of time, space and characters; the similarities and the inconsistencies between the ancient Greek myths and gods and the Yoruba cosmogony and folklore); the cultural and metaphysical syncretism; third and last, the metamorphosis of the myth’s identity, that is, the deconstruction of traditional western canons and themes replaced by precolonial rituals. The result is a syncretic theatre.