Bulgarian News Agency (BTA) Director General Kiril Valchev spoke at BTA’s National Press Club in Athens on Monday during the presentation of the tour of The Bacchae by the Greek playwright Euripides, directed by Javor Gardev, which will be staged in ancient theatres across Greece. The production has already had two premieres – on July 10 and 11 at the Ancient Theatre of Epidaurus as part of the Athens Epidaurus Festival.

The Bacchae is the last surviving tragedy by the Greek playwright Euripides and depicts the return of the god Dionysus to Thebes and his conflict with King Pentheus. It is a co-production of the Athens Epidaurus Festival, the Ivan Vazov National Theatre in Sofia and the National Theatre of Northern Greece. Bulgarian actor Leonid Yovchev stars as Dionysus. The performance features Bulgarian and Greek actors, and the music is performed live by the British band The Tiger Lillies.

Taking part in the presentation were Ivan Vazov National Theatre Director Vasil Vasilev; National Theatre of Northern Greece Artistic Director Asterios Peltekis; director Javor Gardev; co-producer Dimitris Arvanitis; scenographer Nikola Toromanov-Ficho; actor Leonid Yovchev, who plays Dionysus; actress Loukia Michalopoulou, who portrays Agave; actor Alexandros Mylonas, who plays Cadmus; actor Ivan Yurukov, who performs the role of the First Messenger; Athens-Macedonian News Agency Editor-in-Chief John Georgiou; and Bulgarian Ambassador to Greece Valentin Poriazov.

“When we speak about a play that is two and a half millennia old, we should be careful with the term ‘historic’. However, it is a historic fact that, for the first time, a Bulgarian theatre has been presented in Epidaurus and is then embarking on such an extensive tour of the ancient theatres of Greece. And it is doing so with an ancient Greek play and in partnership with a Greek theatre,” Valchev said.

“Thanks to director Javor Gardev, Bulgarians and Greeks are reading together the lessons of ancient times, and doing so in a context which – as noted by Greek theatre critics in their remarkably swift and favourable first reactions – stands against the backdrop of the notorious perception of Balkan intolerance,” he added.

“These lessons from antiquity remind us that before we are Bulgarians, Greeks or Englishmen, like the musicians from the British band The Tiger Lillies taking part in the production, we are all human beings with the same concerns, regardless of where we live. They also remind us that it does not matter when we live, because at the National School for Ancient Languages and Cultures, where Javor Gardev and I studied Ancient Greek language and culture together, we also learned how mistaken the arrogant expression used by people today is, namely that ‘the ancients had an inkling’ of things that we know today, since what is most significant for people today comes from the knowledge of antiquity,” the BTA Director General said.