Ziller building – Main Stage

 

GHOSTS
by Henrik Ibsen
Director: Stamatis Fasoulis
From 11 November 2022

Mrs. Alving is preparing for the opening of an orphanage she has founded in memory of her late husband. Her son Oswald, an accomplished painter, who has lived abroad since he was young, has returned for the ceremony. The old family friend and foundation trustee, Pastor Manders, has also come to deliver a speech about Captain Alving. But beneath the flawless, highly polished surface, something sick and rotten lurks. A tangle of secrets and lies, betrayed love, concealment and hypocrisy gradually begins to unravel as masks are stripped away, the edifice of the sacrosanct family is shaken to its foundations, and the ghosts of the past awaken, thirsting for the blood of the living.

When Ibsen wrote Ghosts in 1881, he raised a storm of controversy with the boldness of his theme and the way in which he exposed a society of hypocrisy and corruption. Twenty-five years since it was last staged at the NTG (in 1977), Ghosts returns in a production by Stamatis Fasoulis, who revisits the play that was his directorial debut in 1979.

 

Production team
Adaptation and direction: Stamatis Fasoulis
Sets: Giorgos Gavalas
Costumes: Angelos Mentis
Music: Angelos Triandafyllou
Lighting: Sakis Birbilis
Dramaturg: Irene Moundraki
Directing assistant: Pavlos Sachpekidis
Set design assistant: Nikolas Kanavaris
Costume design assistant: Marianthi Sandaltzopoulou

Cast (in alphabetical order)
Katerina Maoutsou, Periklis Moustakis, Argyris Pandazaras, Natalia Tsaliki, Giorgos Ziovas

 

Production sponsor 

 

THE BROKEN JUG
by Heinrich von Kleist
Director: Akilas Karazisis & Nikos Hatzopoulos
From 10 December 2022

Heinrich von Kleist was inspired to write The Broken Jug by an eighteenth-century copper engraving and a personal challenge as to whether he could write a comedy.  First staged by Goethe in 1808 in Weimar, the play presents Adam, a judge who is called on to establish who broke a historic jug in the bedroom of Eve, an offence for which he himself is the main suspect. Eve's mother sues her fiancé, and the plot thickens...  The audience knows from the outset who broke the jug, but the outcome of the trial remains uncertain as, with comic suspense, we see how the Establishment covers up its own misdeeds.  

Kleist, the great 19th century writer who influenced diverse movements from realism to expressionism and existentialism, has the judge investigate himself, comically inverting the template of the myth of Oedipus.

The Broken jug is a masterfully rendered folk comedy that satirises social convention, the fantasies of a glorious past, travesties of justice, but also the disadvantaged position of women at the mercy of the whims of male privilege.

 

Production team
Translation: Giorgos Depastas
Director: Akilas Karazisis & Nikos Hatzopoulos
Sets: Clio Boboti
Costumes: Vasiliki Syrma
Music: Kostas Vomvolos
Lighting: Alekos Anastasiou
Dramaturg: Eri Kyrgia
Assistant director: Vasilis Magouliotis
Set design assistant: Aggeliki Vassiliopoulou Kampitsi
Costume design assistant: Olga Evangelidou
Second costume design assistant: Marina Koulouri

 

Cast (in alphabetical order):
Martha Frintzila, Giorgos Giannakakos, Elena-Maria Ilia, Akilas Karazisis, Alexandra Ospici, Kitty Paitazoglou, Panagiotis Panagopoulos, Christina-Melina Polyzoni, Giorgos Symeonidis, Thanos Tokakis, Nikos Hatzopoulos.

 

ROMEO AND JULIET
by William Shakespeare
Director: Dimitris Karantzas
From 20 April 2023

The Shakespearean couple that have been the ultimate personification of doomed love for more than four hundred years need no introduction. Although the roots of the story can be traced back to the 2nd century AD, it is Shakespeare who made it famous. With his unparalleled mastery of language and character development, he created a thrilling tale that stays with us long after we have left the theatre.

Verona is riven by the deadly rivalry of its two most powerful families and is in a state of social unrest. The city is steeped in corruption and its inhabitants, when not out partying, are plotting to destroy their enemies. Romeo and Juliet, the children of the warring families, reject all this. Swimming against the tide of a dying society, they believe that love, nature and spirituality are the only way forward, and would sooner choose death than continue living in a universe that neither understands nor accommodates them.

The play’s director, Dimitris Karantzas, sees Romeo as a younger brother to Hamlet, confronted by a world that he urgently wants to change – even if it will be at the cost of his own life. 

 

Production team
Translation: Dionysis Kapsalis
Director: Dimitris Karantzas
Sets: Maria Panourgia
Costumes: Ioanna Tsami
Movement: Tassos Karahalios
Music: Giorgos Poulios
Lighting: Dimitris Kasimatis
Video: Grigoris Panopoulos
Dramaturg: Eri Kyrgia
First directing assistant: Kelly Papadopoulou
Second directing assistant: Antonis Antonopoulos
Second directing assistant: Marios Kakoulli
Set design assistant: Sofia Theodoraki

Cast (in alphabetical order)
Konstantinos Avarikiotis, Aris Balis, Iro Bezou, Giannis Dalianis, Giorgos Giannakakos, Haris Haralambous-Kazepis, Ioannis Harkoftakis, Anna Kalaitzidou, Giannis Klinis, Antonis Kolovos, Thanos Koniaris,  Giannis Koravos, Ektor Liatsos, Rita Litou, Aris Ninikas, Manos Petrakis, Reni Pittaki,

 

 

 

Ziller builliding  - Nikos Kourkoulos stage

MAN FROM PODOLSK
by Dmitry Danilov
Greek premiere
Director: Giorgos Koutlis
From 14 October 2022

Nikolai, a resident of Podolsk, a drab municipality near Moscow, is arrested for no reason and is taken to a police station in the Russian capital, where he is questioned in eccentric fashion about the history of his city, avant-garde art, and his love affairs, while performing observation tests and physical exercise. The interrogation tests the very limits of his reason right up until the play’s startling denouement.

Man from Podolsk is a disturbing satire with Kafkaesque overtones that critiques the dominant culture of our age that requires us to derive pleasure from the bleakest of surroundings, to have positive energy, and to live meaningful lives. At the same time, it sounds a warning about how the imaginative and sophisticated methods used by authoritarian regimes make us repress ourselves.

Born in 1969, Dmitry Danilov is a journalist, writer and poet with several awards to his name. His theatrical debut, Man from Podolsk, earned him Russia’s premiere theatre award, the Golden Mask, in 2018.

 

Production team
Translation, Direction and Adaptation: Giorgos Koutlis
Dramaturgical advisor: Vasilis Magouliotis
Designer: Paris Mexis
Movement: Alexandros Vardaxoglou
Music: Panagiotis Manouilidis
Lighting: Alekos Anastasiou
Dramaturg: Eri Kyrgia
Music coach: Melina Paionidou
First directing assistant: Alexandros Siatras 
Second directing assistant: Panos Kougias
Design assistant: Alegia Papageorgiou

 

Cast (in alphabetical order)
Aris Balis, Yilmaz Husmen, Dimitris Imellos, Eleni Koutsioumpa, Panagiotis Manouilidis, Alexandros Siatras

 

THE OTHER ONE
by Penny Fylaktaki
Greek premiere
Director: Sofia Paschou
From 21 December 2022

The wedding of a young parliamentary candidate is beset by difficulties: the gold Mercedes carrying the bride and groom is buried by snow and the picturesque church they eventually arrive at after a host of setbacks is not the one booked for the ceremony. With no best man or guests, and only their neurotic parents and the priest of the church in attendance, the couple have no choice but to postpone their lavish wedding and find a way to survive for as long as they are snowed in. The presence of the Other One in the same stifling space will be the catalyst for a solution, leading the family to rally together as a group with common convictions, interests, and aspirations. Faced with the threat of the Other One, the group builds an invisible wall to keep him out.

Penny Fylaktaki approaches the story of a ruined wedding with caustic humour and a penetrating eye, explore the social pathologies, in Greece and elsewhere, that define anything that is different – whether it comes from within us or from outside – as a threatening virus or problem that must be isolated so that the ‘normal’ homogeneity is not disturbed.

 

Production team
Director: Sofia Paschou
Dramaturgical advisor, Artistic advisor to the director: Katerina Mavrogeorgi
Adaptation: Katerina Mavrogeorgi with the assistance of the company
Sets: Evaggelia Therianou
Costumes: Clare Bracewell
Music: Nikos Galenianos
Lighting: Sofia Alexiadou
Dramaturg: Eva Saraga
First directing assistant: Maritina Koutsochioni 
Second directing assistant: Kosmas Kotsi
Set design assistant: Geneviève Athanasopoulou
Costume design assistant: Thanos Papadogiannis

 

Cast (in alphabetical order):
Pantelis Dentakis, Dimitris Drossos, Kostas Filippoglou, Katerina Patsiani, Evdokia Roumelioti, Giorgos Zygouris

 

 

A BRIGHT ROOM CALLED DAY
by Tony Kushner
Greek premiere
Director: Yannis Moschos
From 31 March 2023

 

Tony Kushner (b. 1956), one of the most radical voices in contemporary American drama, is best-known for Angels in America (1992), which brought him international recognition. A Bright Room Called Day, which has never previously been performed in Greece, is a hidden gem of a play. Originally written in 1985, it was followed by three more versions in 1987, 1991 and 2018.

Across twenty-five scenes, the play follows the Nazi Party’s rise to power between New Year’s Day in 1932 and July 1933. Through a group of left-wing artists gathering in Berlin at the house of Agnes, an actress, and discussing how to resist the coming repression, Kushner traces how the political events of those eighteen crucial months affect their lives and how each of them deals with the tumultuous developments. As the clouds of Nazism engulf Germany, the dilemmas of the characters grow and they are faced with increasingly difficult decisions, the play presenting a panoramic view of people and attitudes in an age of fear.

 

Production team
Translation: Christina Babou-Pagoureli
Direction & Adaptation: Yannis Moschos
Sets: Tina Tzoka
Costumes: Vana Giannoula
Movement: Anthi Theofilidi
Music & Sound: Thodoris Economou
Lighting: Lefteris Pavlopoulos
Video: Apostolis Koutsianikoulis
Historical advisor: Vassilis Bogiatzis
Tap dancing teacher: Thanos Daskalopoulos
Dramaturg: Eri Kyrgia
First directing assistant: Evi Nakou
Second directing assistant: Thomais Triantafyllidou
Second directing assistant: Konstantinos Kardakaris
Set design assistant: Stavros Balis
Costume design assistant: Alexandros Garnavos

 

Cast (in alphabetical order):
Anatoli Athanasiadou, Yilmaz Husmen, Laertis Malkotsis, Agoritsa Oikonomou, Panagiotis Panagopoulos, Themis Panou,  Thanasis Raftopoulos, Sofia Seirli, Ypsipili Sofia, Maria Tsima       

 

 

 

Rex Theatre - Marika Kotopouli stage

CITY LIGHTS
by Charlie Chaplin
A very different kind of musical with an original score by Thodoris Economou and lyrics by Stavros Stavrou
From 30 November 2022

Set against the backdrop of the Great Depression, Charlie Chaplin’s timeless and unsurpassed masterpiece City Lights is both a hilarious comedy and a modern parable about social injustice and unrequited love. It is a film with arguably the most moving ending in the history of cinema, a work that reflects the fraught period between the wars and extols a life without compromise, generosity without expectations, and love without boundaries.

This production is set in a film studio and follows the plot of the 1931 film, in which Chaplin, as the Little Tramp, falls in love with a blind flower girl and does everything he can to raise the money for an operation to restore her sight. The shabby hero, struggling to survive in the unforgiving environment of extreme economic liberalism and armed only with his kind heart and his altruism, manages to give his beloved the most precious gift possible.

The production takes the form of an unusual musical, in which live music, songs, action, and the energy of the creators come together to pay tribute to the gifted ‘sad clown’, the heroism of ordinary people, and the archetypal values of life.

 

Production team
Adaptation: Amalia Bennett, Nikita Milivojevic & Thodoris Economou
Director & choreographer: Amalia Bennett
Music: Thodoris Economou
Lyrics: Stavros Stavrou
Dramaturgical advisor: Nikita Milivojevic
Set design: Tina Tzoka
Costume design: Angelos Mentis
Lighting design: Christina Thanasoula
Sound design: Kostas Bokos
Dramaturg: Eva Saraga
First directing assistant: Katerina Gevetzi
Second directing assistant: Sofia Antoniou
Set design assistant: Stavros Balis
Costume design assistant: Marianthi Sandaltzopoulou

 

Cast (in alphabetical order):
Prokopis Agathokleous, Alexandra Aidini, Filippos Anthis, Stella Antipa, Mario Banushi, Kostas Berikopoulos, Ioanna Bitouni, Nikolas Douros, Nikos Iatrou, Ektoras Lygizos, Ivonni Maltezou, Grigoria Metheniti, Mikis Pantelous, Giannis Protopappas, Kris Radanov, Thanasis Raftopoulos, Mariam Rukhadze, Konstantinos Samaa, Thodoris Vrachas, Savina Yannatou

On-stage musicians: Thodoris Economou, Dimitris Hountis, Paraskevas Kitsos, Io Le Moller, Dionysis Vervitsiotis

 

 

 

 

A NIGHT AT EPIDAURUS
Original concept, Director: Nikos Karathanos
From 22 April 2023

Fresh from a splendid performance, splendid actors, ravenous with hunger, descend on a legendary taverna, where, full of self-congratulation, they mix with the staff. There, amidst steaks, lies and sweat, they lay into one another in scenes of utter mayhem that lead them to the Underworld with the taste of cheese pie still in their mouths.

A night-time farce about the carefree, burnt-out summers of our life in Epidaurus, a metaphysical musical about the anticipation of the trip there and the buzz on the way home. An outrageous comedy about the tragedy occurring not in the theatre, but out there, in real life.  A delirious musical about dizzying hubris, poking fun at Greece, and our arrogance and insignificance.

 

Production team
Original concept, Director: Nikos Karathanos
Text: Lena Kitsopoulou
Adaptation: Marisha Triantafyllidou
Sets: Eva Manidaki
Costumes: Angelos Mentis
Movement: Amalia Bennett
Music:Angelos Triantafyllou
Lighting: Felice Ross
Video, Directing assistant: Orestis Stavropoulos
Video, Directing assistant: Dimitris Stavropoulos               
Dramaturg: Eva Saraga

 

Cast (in alphabetical order):
Thanasis Alevras, Haris Alexiou, Ilektra-Apostolia Barouta, Kostas Berikopoulos, Ioanna Bitouni, Vasiliki Driva, Giorgos Fasolas, Danai-Arsenia Filidou,  Galini Hatzipaschali, Nikos Karathanos, Emily Koliandri, Giannis Kotsifas, Io Latsoukaki, Christos Loulis, Zeta Makrypoulia, Ioanna Mavrea, Vasilis Papavasileiou, Panos Papadopoulos, Elli Paspala, Angelos Triantafyllou, Giorgos Ziakas

 

On-stage musicians: Sofia Efkleidou, Vassilis Mantzoukis, Kostas Nikolopoulos, Dimitris Tigkas, Eleftheria Togia

 

 

Rex Theatre -  Children’s Stage - Eleni Papadaki stage

 

HEIDI AND THE MOUNTAINS
by Andreas Flourakis
Director: Io Voulgaraki
From 28 October 2022

 

Can a small child bring about great change? Can someone that decides nothing for themselves transform everyone and everything around them with nothing more than their strength of spirit? Can they soften hearts calcified by loss, and galvanise young and old alike into embracing life once more? The answer is ‘yes’.  A ‘yes’ as big, and warm, and bright as the ‘yes’ that Heidi herself says to life. She says it by shouting and laughing and playing and getting into scrapes with her friends; she says it in her dreams and in her songs; she says it crying and surviving and losing and continuing and hoping and discovering.

“A story for children and those who love children”, was Johanna Spyri’s subtitle for her novel, Heidi.  Today, almost 150 years later, countless adaptations of the book have appeared and the character has become a symbol of the will to live. Io Voulgaraki and a company made up of three generations of actors and three on-stage musicians re-introduce this timeless story to young and old alike in a modern and moving musical version by the multi-award-winning Andreas Flourakis.

 

Production team
Director: Io Voulgaraki
Sets: Magdalini Avgerinou
Costumes: Vasiliki Syrma
Movement & choreography: Katerina Foti
Music & lyrics: Dimitris Tasenas
Lyrics: Andreas Flourakis
Lighting: Alekos Anastasiou
Dramaturg: Maria Karananou
Music coach: Melina Paionidou
First directing assistant: Despina Stavridi
Second directing assistant: Barbara Daliani
Set design assistant: Xenia Papatriantafyllou
Costume design assistant: Marina Koulouri
Visual costume design: Apostolos Kourtogiannis

 

Cast (in alphabetical order):
Christina Brekou, Christina Christodoulou, Yiota Festa, Titos Grigoropoulos, Vasilis Karaboulas, Alexis Kotsopoulos, Laertis Malkotsis, Ioustina Matsiasek, Dina Michailidou, Dimitris Tasenas, Noemi Vasileiadou

 

 

Rex Theatre -  Youth Stage - Eleni Papadaki stage

 

SPRING AWAKENING
by Frank Wedekind
in an adaptation by Anya Reiss
Director: Giannis Karaoulis
From 24 November 2022

A group of schoolchildren trapped in an uninspired education system and an oppressive environment that does not understand them and that they do not understand, are attempting to learn about their bodies, their minds, and the world around them. The refusal of the family to talk about relationships and sex, the hypocrisy of society, and a problematic relationship with the internet force them to turn to each other for support – without always being able to find it.  In this modern adaptation by the award-winning Anya Reiss, Frank Wedekind’s classic masterpiece meets today’s teenagers, just as ‘awakened’ and just as helpless as those of the original, but in an age in which the digital world is both a means of connection and a confirmation of their isolation.

Spring Awakening, this “lyrical indictment of Puritan superstitions”, as Kenneth Tynan called it, was censored for decades for daring to ask the most important and difficult of questions. Seen through a modern lens, these same questions resonate in Giannis Karaoulis’s production: how do we approach the other people when they are right in front of us rather than on a screen? How do we discover our sexual orientation, how do we first fall in love? With youthful tension, explosive movement, contemporary music, videos and scenes that walk a tightrope between realism and expressionism, the production embraces the audacious and poetic character of Wedekind’s work, reminding us that as long as humans exist on the planet, adolescence will always be the season of spring.

 

Production team
Adapted by: Anya Reiss
Translation: Sofia Grigoriou
Director: Giannis Karaoulis
Adaptation: Lito Triantafyllidou & Giannis Karaoulis
Dramaturgical advisor: Irene Moundraki
Designer: Edouardos Georgiou
Movement: Froso Korrou
Music: Diamantis Adamantidis
Lyrics: Lito Triantafyllidou & Giannis Karaoulis
Lighting: Nikos Vlasopoulos
Music coach: Melina Peonidou
Directing assistant: Irini Ampoumogli
Design assistant: Konstantsia Sarafianou

 

Cast (in alphabetical order):
Asimina Anastasopoulou, Dionysia Balamoti, Andromachi Foundoulidou, Anastasis Georgoulas, Christos Kragiopoulos, Lambros Konstanteas, Efstathia Lagiokapa, Alkiviadis Maggonas, Eleni Moleski, Nikolas Papadomichelakis, Giorgos Paterakis, Fani Xenoudaki, Aliki Zaharopoulou

 

The Youth Stage of the National Theatre of Greece was created as part of the Theatre in the New School initiative which was included in the “Human Resources Development, Education and Lifelong Learning” Operational Programme of the 2014-2020 NSRF.

 

STORIES TO KEEP YOU AWAKE AT NIGHT
Based on the works of Noel Greig
Director: Thanos Tokakis 
From 28 April 2023

 

All the things they never told you about. About the knife that Little Red Riding Hood hides in the basket; the loneliness that weighs down on you like lead; the ravenous beasts that live inside your own body and eat you up from the inside out. About witches who only tell the truth, murmuring about the dozens of ways we humans have found of destroying one another; about love with razor-sharp teeth; about yesterday’s faded heroes and dreams that are full to overflowing. The stories that you were brought up with come back to haunt you – or save you – terrifying, relentless but also truer than ever. A group of actors and teenagers dare to enter the deep dark forest of childhood fairy tales, searching for all their hidden truths about the cruelty of the world and what it means to be young in it.

In Stories to keep you awake at night, directed by Sofia Vgenopoulou, three of Greig's best works (Tin Soldier, Hood in the Wood and Tasty Tale) are interwoven with the questions, dreams and nightmares of young people in Greece in 2022. The marginalisation of difference, the oppression of sexuality and any form of freedom, violence, abuse, our overconsuming culture but also bravery, resilience and hope, the search for authenticity and female emancipation are just a few of the paths that these stories illuminate with refreshing humour, poetic language and teenage daring. They are stories to wake us all up. Stories that will not allow us to close our eyes, forcing us, instead, to look at the real anxieties of young people today.

 

Production team
Translation: Julia Diamantopoulou
Director: Thanos Tokakis

 

Cast (in alphabetical order):
Asimina Anastasopoulou, Dionysia Balamoti, Andromachi Foundoulidou, Anastasis Georgoulas, Lambros Konstanteas, Christos Kragiopoulos, Efstathia Lagiokapa, Alkiviadis Maggonas, Eleni Moleski, Nikolas Papadomichelakis, Giorgos Paterakis, Fani Xenoudaki

 

The Youth Stage of the National Theatre of Greece was created as part of the Theatre in the New School initiative which was included in the “Human Resources Development, Education and Lifelong Learning” Operational Programme of the 2014-2020 NSRF.

 

 

Experimental Stage – Emerging Artists 
Rex Theatre - Katina Paxinou stage

 

SITE-SPECIFIC PROMENADE PRODUCTION
TOPOGRAPHY OF DEATH OR LET US NOT FORGET
Concept and director: Brikena Gishto
From 18 November 2022

 

The promenade production Topography of death or Let us not forget follows a route in the centre of Athens made up of sites imbued with memory. Its central theme is the murder in public places of young men and women who dreamed of a more just world, including Alexandros Grigoropoulos, Zak Kostopoulos, and Pavlos Fyssas. The murders of these now iconic figures wounded society as a whole, leaving indelible scars on an entire generation.

The director, Brikena Gishto, focusses on the political theatre of today, inviting audiences to navigate the city in a different way, far from the usual tourist attractions. She draws her material from interviews, archives, and marks worn by the city: the names of streets, slogans on walls, improvised monuments and other interventions. The actors adopt different perspectives so that the events are narrated through many voices. The production investigates the traces of traumatic events that still remain in the city and in the consciousness of its inhabitants and those who traverse it, endeavouring at the same time to reappropriate the public space. Chiefly, however, it invites us to see this walk through history as a spark of hope so that the longing for change does not die out.

 

Production team
Original concept, Director: Brikena Gishto
Dramatisation, Assistant director: Ioanna Lioutsia
Music: Yiannis Tavlas
Artistic advisor for promenade performance and site-specific sets: Yannis Varvaressos
Lyrics, hip hop parts: Natasha Faii Kosmidou
Dramaturg: Aspasia-Maria Alexiou
Directing assistant Nicolas Lampakis

 

Cast (in alphabetical order):
Alexandros Giangousis, Erato Karathanasi, Tasos Rodovitis, Gal Rombisa, Giannis Sampsalakis, Afroditi Sovolou

 

 

 

THE PROVOCATEURS
The whole truth about the actual facts from the fictional state of Orygia
by Giannis Aposkitis
Director: Orestis Stavropoulos
From 8 December 2022

 

The Provocateurs unfolds in a TV studio, in the office of two government employees, and on the screens of the countless TVs, computers and mobile phones belonging to the citizens of Orygia, a fictional country that is not so far removed from our own world. Reality is experienced as a constant news cycle that spreads like wildfire and is forgotten just as quickly. All the characters in the play fluctuate between truth and lies, becoming performers in order to construct an image, a news item. However, if the truth is no longer simply subjective, but a construct, what does that say about us and our memories? How can anyone tell where the spectacle begins and ends?

This surrealist comedy that satirises the mechanisms of power and fake news is a double debut at the National Theatre of Greece for the writer, Giannis Aposkitis, and the director, Orestis Stavropoulos, who is a graduate of the NTG Drama School’s Directing Department. The two creators examine the spread of post-truth in today’s society; the absurdities that we do not recognise as such, and accept as a natural part of everyday life; and the exploitation of the archetypal human need to belong to a group that is united by a common narrative.

 

Production team
Director: Orestis Stavropoulos
Associate dramaturg, Video: Dimitris Stavropoulos
Set and lighting design: Sakis Birbilis
Costumes: Olga Evangelidou
Movement: Polina Evangelou
Music: Angelos Triantafyllou
Dramaturg: Aspasia-Maria Alexiou
Directing assistant: Odysseas Zikas
Set design assistant: Natasha Tsintikidi

 

Cast (in alphabetical order):
Margarita Alexiadi, Lambros Grammatikos, Christos Kontogeorgis, Erietta Manouri, Konstantinos Mavropoulos, Iokasti-Agave Papanikolaou, Konstantinos Plemmenos, Ioannis Tsoumarakis

 

 

THE FINAL THOLUTHION
Based on texts by Kostakis Anan and Suyako
Director: Sotiris Roumeliotis
From 27 January 2023

 

If you had a remote control that let you press pause and then rewind back to different stages in your life, what would you do differently? At the National Theatre of Greece's Experimental Stage for Emerging Artists, seven actors meet on stage to give a definitive answer to this pressing question. The final tholuthion, a subversive work directed by Sotiris Roumeliotis, a creator with a particular interest in bringing non-theatrical works to the stage, is based on the caustic and idiosyncratic writing of Kostakis Anan and Suyako, two contemporary writers who are observers of the reality of modern Greece and its challenges. Their cynical humour and surreal exaggeration, as well as their deep self-mockery, conceal a touching sympathy for the human condition.

Seven people stop on a railway track and urgently begin soul-searching. As imminent death causes their entire lives to flash before their eyes like a film, they manage, for the first time, to press pause. To rewind to the past. To skip the boring parts and stop at the key moments. And to find out what went wrong, when, and why.

We are pulled back into the past by the locomotive of a collective narrative that incorporates startling and compelling flashbacks, becoming derailed on the sharp, sardonic bends of life and sliding onto the wrong side of the tracks, the dark places of frustration and disenchantment. Yet have we ever thought about what is truly worthwhile in our existence? Or are we like mice running frantically on a wheel, as our lives hurtle out of control?

 

Production team
Direction and Adaptation: Sotiris Roumeliotis
Sets & costumes: Maria Karadeloglou
Music: Giorgos Chrysikos
Lighting: Eleftheria Deko
Video: Dido Gkogkou
Dramaturg: Aspasia-Maria Alexiou
Directing assistant: Nicolas Lampakis
Lighting assistant: Nassia Lazou

 

Cast (in alphabetical order):
Alexandros Giangousis, Erato Karathanasi, Tasos Rodovitis, Gal Rombisa, Giannis Sampsalakis, Afroditi Sovolou, Konstantinos Triantakonstantis<0}

 

 

GOODBYE, LINDITA
Original concept, Director: Mario Banushi
From 29 March 2023

 

Mario Banushi, a multitalented young artist who brings a personal, handcrafted visual world to the theatre, has been inspired by the history of the Balkans and its burial customs and traditions to create a performance centred on loss. Τhe narrative is structured around a sequence of associated images that link the state of mourning with a new birth. The production is a modern fairy tale, a parable about life after the death of a loved one.

Goodbye, Lindita tells the story of a family and the house where they live, where a series of strange events bring to the surface a hidden world made up of dreams and nightmares, an upside-down fairy-tale reality with its own rules.  What needs to happen for the final farewell to take place? How can life go on? What does (this) death mean?

 

 

Production team
Original concept, Director: Mario Banushi
Dramaturgical advisor: Sophia Eftychiadou
Set & Costumes: Sotiris Melanos
Music: Emmanouil Rovithis
Dramaturg: Aspasia-Maria Alexiou
Directing assistant: Theodora Patiti

 

Cast (in alphabetical order)
Mario Banushi, Babis Galiatsatos, Alexandra Hasani, Madalena Karavatou, Afroditi Katsarou, Eftychia Stefanou, Anna Symeonidou, Chryssi Vidalaki

On-stage musician: Jessica Onyyinyechi  Anosike

 

YES, WE CAN’T
Original concept, Director: Marilena Katranidou
 

Five characters at the outer limits of mental fatigue, citizens of the modern capitalist world and members of the achievement society, are at the point where they can no longer go on. Their honest acknowledgement of weakness and resignation reveals the importance of the seemingly pointless, of play, of things that are not profit-driven. How does fatigue affect each of the characters? How can they listen to their desires, which get lost in the hustle and bustle of everyday life?

Director Marilena Katranidou’s research was sparked by the ideas of the philosopher Byung-Chul Han about the ‘fatigue society’.  At a time when ‘can’ has replaced ‘should’ as the main axis around which human behaviour is organised, contemporary Westerners are all too familiar with the concept of burn-out. The constant insistence on productivity, overwork, the pursuit of perfection and ultimately self-exploitation have led to a veneer of happiness. The play explores the distance between automation and spontaneity and between powerlessness and play. It is an original creation for the stage, dedicated to actions that lead nowhere. But can they perhaps offer a way out of the suffocation of modern life?

 

Production team
Original concept, Director: Marilena Katranidou
Dramatisation: Iliana Kaladami & Giorgos Kritharas
Designer: Dido Gkogkou
Music: Dimos Vryzas
Lighting: Eleni Houmou
Dramaturg: Aspasia-Maria Alexiou

 

Cast (in alphabetical order):
Aris Balis, Mario Banushi, Ilektra Fragkiadaki, Babis Galiatsatos, Alexandra Hasani

On-stage musician: Dimos Vryzas

 

 

 

CO - PRODUCTIONS

 

STELLA WITH THE RED GLOVES

By Iakovos Kambanellis
Director: Giannos Perlegas
A co-production of the National Theatre of Greece and the Greek Art Theatre

Theatre Karolos Koun- Frynichou Str.

 

The independent and rebellious Stella, a woman who is indifferent to what society thinks of the way she lives her life, is a singer at a local open-air night club. Stella insists on defining herself, rather than being defined by others, on experiencing love without boundaries, and on not giving in to society’s demands on her. When she meets Miltos, it will prove fatal…

Written in 1954, the play vividly brings to life a world of careless abandon that uses rebetiko music as a way of escaping from the pressures of everyday life and a financial crisis at a time when society is trying to shape its identity and emerge from the ruins of the Civil War.

In 2020, during the second lockdown, this National Theatre of Greece production was performed just once, to an online audience. This restaging of Stella with the red gloves in a joint production between two historic theatres - the NTG and the Art Theatre - enables audiences to finally see the play live, at the same time honouring the memory of Iakovos Kambanellis.

 

Creation team
Director, musical supervision: Giannos Perlegas
Designer: Loukia Houliara
Lighting: Tasos Palaioroutas
Video: Maria Athanasopoulou
Music coach: Stratos Grintzalis

Cast: Anthi Efstratiadou, Sofia Kokkali, Katerina Lypiridou, Yannis Papadopoulos, Giannos Perlegas, Evi Saoulidou, Thodoris Skyftoulis, Michalis Titopoulos

On-stage musician: Stratos Grintzalis

Latest updated: 26/04/2023