Experiencing the Sacred in the Theatre of Pentheus: Bad Faith Immersion from the Performance Group to Punchdrunk

This chapter develops the example of Pentheus from Euripides’ Bacchae to offer a provocation on the promises and premises of immersive theatre. Examining a particular genealogy from the Performance Group in the late 1960s US to the twenty-first century practices of British company Punchdrunk, I reflect on several productions that offer audience members immersive access to an encounter with the sacred. Pentheus – who attempts to see the unseeable rites of the maenads by disguising himself as a participant – becomes a metaphor for the multifarious ways in which, so I argue, these productions operate in bad faith. I draw on concerns articulated by several theatre and performance scholars about the ethics of immersive theatre, considering the form’s supposed capacity to liberate audience agency from the perceived spectatorial passivity of ‘conventional’ theatre, what such agency demands, and how it configures the notion of (sacred) experience. Ultimately, I aim to sketch a framework for future reflection on the uses of immersion in theatrical contexts – the theatre of Pentheus, or bad faith immersion – that is helpful to those interested in theatre, classical reception, and beyond.