by Steven Ratzlaff

March 29th – April 8th 2012
Rachel Browne Theatre – 211 Bannatyne

Directed by Bill Kerr

Featuring Sarah Constible & Ross McMillan

Dionysus in Stony Mountain is about the relationship between Heidi, a prison psychiatrist, and her patient James. Although his parole hearing is approaching, James has gone off his meds in favour of reading certain works of the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.

Ratzlaff gives us an unabashedly dense and intellectual play that explores the binding and loosening of family ties, the warehousing of the mentally ill in Canada’s prisons, mania, and the boundaries of the psychiatrist/patient relationship.

“Nietzsche is a philosopher who grabs you by the throat and compels you to look at things from unaccustomed angles and in strange light. Through the years I have been struck by how much Nietzsche is with us, behind us and also perhaps, before us. He predicted that, saying many times that he wrote for those who were not yet born.” – Steven Ratzlaff