Transvestism in Euripides’ Bacchae and its reformulation in some modern versions

Abstract

In the last decades, Bacchae by Euripides (408 B.C.) has awakened special interest, which has become evident not only in the numerous pages devoted to comment on it but in the countless versions staged around the world. We will focus on the transvestism scene (vv. 912-976), which marks a turning point in the storyline of the play and has also been particularly debated. First of all, we will succinctly set forth some lines of discussion that center on this scene and we will attempt to come closer to the experience that Euripides had proposed. Then, we will analyse some of the many performative proposals put forward recently, to analyse the way in which the scene in question has been approached and performed.