About this event

This event is hybrid, participants are welcome to join in person or online.

In this session, three speakers will explore Euripides' The Bacchae from historical, theatrical, and psychoanalytic perspectives, revealing its enduring resonance across time. 

Edith Hall will situate the play in the period it was written - the end of a long era of internal and external conflict, when Athens stood on the brink of defeat. She will highlight the significance of the Dionysiac cult, which held profound importance for women, and examine how this influence shapes the play's representation of gender and divine experience. 

David Bullen will present the view that Greek tragedies survive today as patchy and partial texts that demand creative intervention from theatre-makers - writers, actors, directors, and others - in order to come alive in performance. In this process, modern ideas about humanity and the world infuse these ancient works. In the UK, the dominant approach has been one of psychological naturalism. The Bacchae is a fascinating case study because it invites and resists this approach, a tension that has challenged British artists from its first modern staging in 1908 through to present day. Bullen's talk will explore key moments from the play's performance history over the last 120 years. 

David Bell will turn to the irreconcilable divisions within human nature - a tragic dimension of our lives that lies at the heart of Euripides' play. He will examine these dualities through a range of psychoanalytic perspectives: Pentheus, representing rigid order, is brought into direct confrontation with Dionysus, who demands the right to cause disorder and dissolve boundaries - a form of the return of the repressed. A second, more complex reading will emphasise the world created through processes of splitting and projection. Finally, Bell will offer a reading grounded in Bion's model of the 'container-contained'. 

Together, these talks will reveal The Bacchae as a work that speaks across centuries - at once historical, psychological, and deeply human.

Professor Edith Hall is Professor of Classics at Durham University - and her passion for her subject reaches far beyond the lecture hall or seminar room. She wants us all to understand how the writing and thinking of ancient Greece still influence how we write and think today. She leads a campaign called 'Advocating Classics Education', to promote teaching in state secondary schools, and her books include 'Aristotle's Way: How Ancient Wisdom Can Change Your Life' and 'Ancient Greeks: Ten Ways They Shaped the Modern World'. Her most recent book is 'Facing Down the Furies: Suicide, the ancient Greeks and Me' - a deeply personal account of the psychological damage that suicide inflicts across generations, drawing parallels between her own family history and characters from Greek tragedy.

Dr David Bullen is a theatre director, writer, dramaturg, and academic. He is a Lecturer in Drama and Theatre at Royal Holloway, University of London, where he has taught since 2013, and co-artistic director of theatre company 'Gentle Furies'. Specialising in feminist and queer adaptations of mythical and cannonical stories, his recent and forthcoming publications include: 'Greek Tragedy, Education, and Theatre Practices in the UK Classics Ecology' (edited with Christine Plastow, 2024), 'Shakespeare in the Theatre: Phyllida Lloyd' (with Elizabeth Schafer, 2026), 'Metheun Student Editions: Antigone' (2026), and 'Greek Tragedy as Twenty-First-Century British Theatre: Why, What, How' (2026). 

Dr David Bell retired in 2021 after 25 years as a consultant at the Tavistock where he led a specialist service (the Fitzjohn's Unit) for the more complex cases. He is a Past President of the British Psychoanalytic Society. Throughout his career, he has been deeply involved in interdisciplinary studies such as psychoanalysis and literature, philosophy and socio-political theory. His most recent paper 'Psychoanalytic Reflections on Gaza' was published in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy. He is a leading psychiatric expert in immigration/asylum/human rights. His books include: 'Reason and Passion', 'Psychoanalysis and Culture', 'On the Border', 'Against the Tide: the Work of the Fitzjohn Unit', and 'Paranoia'.

Concession tickets are available, for students, BPAS candidates and NHS trainees. Please email [email protected] if you are unsure if you qualify for a concession ticket.

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