ARISTOPHANES’ “WEALTH” – DIRECTED BY ANGELIKI KASSOLA

MORNING PERFORMANCES FOR SCHOOLS OF THE SECONDARY EDUCATION

Wealth, directed by Angeliki Kassola and performed by the independent theater company peiragma theater group, is an innovative contemporary political staging of Aristophanes “Plutus”, where actors and audiences are joined in an interactive musical utopia for a fair redistribution of wealth and demand ‘bread, cheese, wine, work and more democracy”. The performance is going to be hosted at MCF and it will be presented for schools of the secondary education.

The production has recently been awarded (19/2/2013) for its experimental staging with the prestigious “Commendation for Ancient Drama 2012” by the Greek Theater and Music Critics Association.

The production has been greeted in Greece as an especially innovative staging of Aristophanes that keeps a balance between tradition and experimentation. It has been noted for the talent and dynamism of the actors, its vitality, its fast paced rhythms, its humor, its stage surprises and its blending in the performance current political and economic developments while keeping Aristophanes’ text and spirit intact.

“Wealth” has played to full houses with numerous members of the audience revisiting the theater week after week, as well as for schools of the secondary education. It has also visited mountain villages and communities during the summer of 2012, as part of its community theater program, incorporating the talents of local musicians, folk dancers and villagers in the performance after a short period of workshops culminating in a joined fiesta at the end.

The performance is based on three principles: respect for the poetic text; live interaction with the audience through the use of a theatricality that draws from theater forms and traditions of the Greek popular and folk theater; an innovative treatment of the comic chorus which comprises of individuals, and which is an always present and active participant in words, reactions and deeds. The performance combines music from Greek demotic folk songs, contemporary Greek composers that have marked the music of Greece and poetic segments from Greek contemporary poets (Costas Varnali, Tassos Livaditis, Manolis Polentas and Mitsos Kassolas) which have been incorporated in the scenes of Poverty and the Sycophant as the group’s parabasis in the aristophanic text that best express our reaction’s and concerns regarding the Greek and European “crisis”.

“Wealth” is a political performance that articulates through Aristophanes’ text the experience of the “here and now”; the experience of the everyday material and spiritual impoverishment of the country and the daily deterioration of democratic institutions and consciousness in times where we are witnessing the rise of depression, neo-fascism, racism and violence. Its aesthetic, in terms of costume, make up, performance style, set and props as well as in its energy and use of live improvisational elements, uses and explores elements and forms from the Greek popular and folk theater of the 30s-70s, and is reminiscent of the Greek theater travelling troupes that were performing in village coffee shops and town squares.

It has been staged in a way that it can communicate with people of different ages, social strata and cultural backgrounds. Peiragma theater group believes that theater is a political act and considers it its duty, in  times of crisis when its audience is plagued with depression and futility, to inspire it and give encouragement, practically, from the stage, through a dynamic group of actors that emits energy, creativity, common purpose, enthusiasm and cooperation…

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Peira(g)ma theater group (whose name in Greek means both “to tease” and “to experiment” with the addition or extraction of the letter “g”) is in its fifth year of operation and is one of Greece’s upcoming independent theater groups. Co-founded in 2008 by artistic director Angeliki Kassola and the actors Yannis Karounis and Irene Mela it has been gradually developing into a theater collective. Continuous research work is the everyday practice of the team members. Its rehearsals and workshops take place in the group’s laboratory of theatrical research studio 20/21 in Athens. All stages of the group’s work and actions, whether rehearsals, workshops, debates, research and performances are open to the public from the first moment of development. We actively seek exposure, dialogue and communication with the audience and with our piers at all times, refusing the “safety” of isolation. We are committed to remaining in a state continual evolution and all our productions are works in progress.