The National Theatre of Greece operates under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture, with whose support, in partnership with the Diazoma Association, it is implementing the Introduction to Greece’s Ancient Theatres scheme for a second successive year. This summer, the innovative initiative to raise the profile of Greece’s surviving ancient theatres returns with a tour of FRAGMENTS: Euripides a theatre/archaeology performance in which Efthimis Theou directs a cast of outstanding Greek actors.

In 2022, a papyrus with excerpts from Euripides’ lost plays Polyidus and Ino was found in Philadelphia, Egypt. Taking this discovery as its starting point, FRAGMENTS: Euripides explores partially extant texts by the Athenian tragedian, visiting ancient theatres in Attica and the islands of the Aegean with a production that combines narrative and music, and occupies a space between performance and archaeology.

The finds yielded by the strange, existential unearthing that takes place on stage are not vases or pieces of architecture, but lines once spoken by ancient actors and now broken into tiny pieces. Five actors/archaeologists, equipped with trowels, brushes, sieves and plumb bobs, dig away beneath the sun, following the almost ritualistic process of an excavation as it unfolds over the course of a day, and revealing glimpses of ancient performances and daily life at the sites where the work is staged.

FRAGMENTS: Euripides will be hosted in natural afternoon and evening light in July, August and September in the ancient theatres of Milos, Eretria, Thassos, Mytilene, Lemnos, Karthaia (Kea), Trachones (Alimos), and Zea (Piraeus), as well as on the tiny island of Agios Efstratios. Admission is free but tickets must be booked in advance.

About FRAGMENTS: Euripides
In addition to the famous plays of Euripides that have come down to us in their entirety, over a thousand lines of verse have survived on pieces of papyrus, buried in the dry Egyptian soil or found here and there incorporated into other texts. These might be an isolated scene, a few scattered sentences or even a single word from works that are largely unknown to the public, such as his provocative Andromeda, the lyrical Phaeton, the radical Cretans, or the contemplative Polyidus.

FRAGMENTS: Euripides is a poetic approach to this patchwork but highly theatrical and evocative material, engaging with individual excerpts in a richly musical and narratively compelling way while telling the often thrilling story of their discovery. At the same time, it evokes the feeling left by the echo of voices that have not spoken for thousands of years, the intensity of trying to see and describe a vanished world by way of its worn remnants.

About theatre/archaeology
Fragments: Euripides builds on fifteen years of work by actor, director and archaeologist Efthimis Theou, bringing together his two disciplines within a new hybrid approach that views ancient artefacts from the perspective of performance, and uses archaeological methods such as excavation and anthropological research to enrich site-specific theatre. The aim is always for the greatest possible involvement of local communities in field studies and the creative process (see http://performance-archaeology.com/).

Theou’s previous productions have been developed within the framework of research programmes at locations such as the Neolithic settlement of Koutroulou Magoula in Central Greece, the Bronze Age dwelling complex at Katalymata on the island of Gavdos, and the archaeological site of Koimisis on the islet of Therasia. These activities have been presented as part of the Ministry of Culture’s All of Greece, One Culture programme, and at the National Museum of Contemporary Art, the State Museum of Contemporary Art, the Benaki Museum, and other venues in Greece and abroad.

In 2013, The Meal was performed as part of the exhibition Afresh. A New Generation of Greek Artists at the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Athens, while in 2015, it represented Greece at the Mediterranea 17 Young Artists Biennale in Milan. In 2023, the National Museum of Contemporary Art published the catalogue Efthimis Theou. Theatre/Archaeology (ed. A. Mykoniati), which takes a comprehensive look at his work.