The Return is a Rebetiko music adaptation of Euripides’s The Bacchae and is intercultural in both form and content. Setting the narrative of the ancient play in Athens in the early 1990s, and interpreting the character of Dionysus as an enigmatic, Greek-American rock star named Acolyte, the piece explores issues of cultural colonialism, marginalization, appropriation, and xenophobia. Acolyte was born in Greece by a Greek mother and an American father. But after his mother’s mysterious death, he disappeared and was raised in Queens, New York. Acolyte’s pop music is heavily influenced by the Astorian Greek Rebetiko of his youth, the “Blues of Greece,” which he blends with American garage rock. When he returns to Athens for a concert tour, he stokes a cultural revolution.
Theatro Roes, Athens, Performances, March, 2011
Theatro Chora, Athens, Workshop, June, 2010