JAPANESE THEATRE director Tadashi Suzuki is renowned for combining Greek tragedy with traditional Japanese performing arts in a way that examines universal issues.
Internationally acclaimed for his 'elegant, musical and intensely physical versions of classical theatre', the artistic director of the Shizuoka Performing Arts Centre will bring Dionysus - an adaptation of The Bacchae by Greek dramatist Euripides - to the Kwai Tsing Theatre later this month.
The show will be a rare occasion to observe the contemporary works of Suzuki, who is the creator of the Suzuki Method of Actor Training, which is widely practised in the United States. He also directed The Trojan Women and Waiting for Romeo, which came to Hong Kong in 1986 and 1995, respectively.
'If you are a theatre goer, you will appreciate his work,' said Jump Chung Kan-hei, assistant manager of theatre at LCSD. 'The performance is stunning. The story itself is very tragic. It's very dramatic.'
Dionysus probes the dichotomy of group identity and the individual through the story of the god of wine, Dionysus, and King Pentheus of Thebes. The king, who refuses to worship the god, comes to a violent end when Dionysus takes possession of Thebes' women, leaving his mother to deal with the realisation she and her son were scapegoats for the community.
Suzuki, who was the organiser of Japan's first international theatre Toga Festival, has continually drawn on the similarities between Greek tragedy and Japan's classic drama Noh (a Japanese performance form which combines dance, drama, music and poetry), physically manifested in the use of masks and a stark stage.
