chapter 8 Performance, Memory, and Affect Animal Choruses in Attic Vase Painting Naomi Weiss One of the promotional photographs for Bakkhai, produced in 2015 at the Almeida Theater in London, shows the actor Ben Whishaw as Dionysus, wearing big animal horns and glaring menacingly (Figure 8.1). 1 His face, body, and clothes seem blackened with charcoal, offset by some gleaming paint smeared across his lips, cheeks, and arms. In the background is one of the chorus members, her skin similarly stained, with leafy branches encirc- ling her head. None of the stage apparatus is visible, and an intensely blue light saturates the whole scene, adding to its weird eeriness. This photograph of a particular moment in Bakkhai activates in me a memory of both that scene and the play as a whole, which I saw in August 2015. I remember the moment when Whishaw suddenly appeared in this animal-like, otherworldly form, demonstrating the frightening power of Dionysus following the dismemberment of Pentheus. When I look at the woman in the background I recall the entire chorus of ten Bacchants; I remember their costumes of long brown dresses and leafy wreaths, but above all I hear their harmonized cries and dissonant yelps, and the loud thumping they made with their sticks upon the ground. I forget whether they did the latter at just one moment in the play or throughout, but that combination of sounds is my most vivid memory of the entire production, and I experience it all over again upon looking at a photograph that is focused on one of the actors, not the chorus, and does not record any of their frenetic movements or music. As I recall the chorus, I start thinking Many thanks to Lauren Curtis, Seth Estrin, Carolyn Laferrière, and Sarah Olsen for invaluable feedback on earlier drafts. Thanks also to Sean Curran for musical ideas and bibliography, and Sheramy Bundrick, Robin Osborne, and Deborah Steiner for clarifying particular details of my argument. Finally, I am grateful to all the participants at the Music and Memory conference in June 2017 for their stimulating discussion. 1 Bakkhai was produced as part of the Almeida’s Greeks series, using Anne Carson’s new translation of Euripides’ play. It was directed by James MacDonald and headlined by Ben Whishaw and Bertie Cavell; its innovative a cappella choral music was composed by Orlando Gough. 203 Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108917858.009 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Harvard-Smithsonian Centerfor Astrophysics, on 23 Feb 2022 at 01:22:04, subject to the