Easter Island by Lysander Spetsieris

A performance about transition…

The play Easter Island, following two particularly successful presentations at St. Paul’s Anglican Church, last June, is now returning to the underground scene of the Michael Cacoyannis Foundation in order to tell the strange story of Katherine.

The main focus of the story lies in the path followed by the central character and the most important moments in her life and surrounding events, interwoven with the milestones of Greek history of the 20^th Century. The transitions in life…from her childhood years in a village in the mountains to experiencing war in the city, the dictatorship and the political changeover. From isolation and introversion to meeting new people and making her own family. From the ordinariness which has always prevailed in her life to the illness which comes to change everything, turning her into someone utterly unexpected and different… The human body, a central theme in the performance, stands alone and vulnerable, it falls ill, it becomes transfigured, yet it never succumbs.

A visual performance split into two parts, the Sculpture and the Metamorphosis, intertwining the core physical action with limited dialogue and musical restructuring of traditional sounds, via digital means, in order to reflect our innate need for a second chance, to discover Easter Island.

Note by the Director:
The means used to create each and every image on Easter Island act as transparency between the stage and the audience, like a windowpane, steamed up by the breath of passersby who mindlessly stop to look inside. This haze upon the windowpane sharpens some images whilst softening others, eventually prompting the indiscretion of the audience to raise a palm and wipe clear a peephole here or there.

Concept – Direction – Visual supervision: Lysander Spetsieris
Performing: Eugenia Papageorgiou, Anna Papadaki, Lysander Spetsieris
Songs – Sound design: Anna Papaioannou
Lighting design: Mihalis Kloukinas
Set and stage design: Dimitra Marini
Costumes: Vasiliki Syrma
Special constructions: Alexandros Loggos
Actor training: Eugenia Papageorgiou
Assistant director: Speri Kanata
Production manager: Phaedra Chatzikostanti
Photographs: Marios Vouros, Constantina Gorgogianni
Trailer: Constantina Gorgogianni
Rehearsal photographs: RITA TSELA
(within the framework of the collaboration between MCF and FOCUS photography school – www.focus.edu.gr -)
Head of communications: Ioanna Iakovidi
A co-production by the Michael Cacoyannis Foundation and New Production