Almost everything (walls, floor, dress, decoration, curtain separating locales) is black or white. But Agave's dress after she kills her own son is red, and that's how you know her. Otherwise, you would be wondering, as you may be about most of Euripides' plot and points of view in this mod, arty version of The Bacchae. Dionysius, as conveyed by sexy, slithering Juan Javier Cardenas, sets his challenge right at the start: "A life in which the Gods are not invited isn't worth living." And of course, he is "the son of God" come to Thebes, which has rejected him in the person of Penthius (Matt Brown, surprisingly subdued). The city and its citizens -- women, above all -- have to pay for not recognizing that Dionysius' mother Semele mated with Zeus. And that Dionysius is therefore divine.
The chorus (Karis Danish, leader, with Heather Kelley and Julie Lachance, looking not at all Asian as originally conceived but like druggies who've just emerged from lolling in a 1960s Parisian cafe full of existentialists) tell you all about the problem. They sometimes sing with beautiful voices. Trouble is, you don't get much of the sense of their comments because they're often Greek to you, whether in Greek or in English, what with their frequent high frequency.
They also push around a showcase containing a leafy crown fit for a god and a knife. Those symbols help you know what's coming. Of course, there's also Marcus Denard Johnson's effective seer Teiresius, but then that character doesn't get listened to by a long shot. He and Pentius' dad Kadmos -- portrayed by Brent Bateman as a sad king, indeed -- rightly claim a lot to moan about in Thebes, and not just at dynasty's end.
Messenger Jennifer R. P. Logue also has her say. Unfortunately, it substitutes for your getting to see the actual rites of the crazed women doing their Dionysian thing up in the hills.
Why sit through all this artsy-ness and not get to see the orgy? You just have to settle for that early-on bit of Dionysius' feeling under a chorine's crouch to get your bit of titillation. And there's only a red dress on Agave instead of Pentius' head on her spear. (She has merely that knife, uncased, here.) Is the directorial thrust toward showing that religious fanaticism readily reappears in modern dress? That a denier, even a king like Pentius (as one critic has suggested) can be seduced? Well, maybe such a beautiful boy as Juan Javier Cardenas can lure you into continuing to pursue meaning.
Personally, I prefer Euripides' multi-nuanced text to this oblique production -- notably full of movement, rarely moving.
