“French Theatre à la Grecque” – Contemporary Theatre Festival
* Five translators: Effie Giannopoulou, Dimitris Dimitriades, Asimenia Euthimiou, Dimitra Kondilaki, Andreas Staikos
* Five directors: Lefteris Giovanidis, Themelis Glynatsis, Vassilis Mavrogeorgiou, Thanassis Sarantos, Yiannis Skourletis
* Thirteen actors: Polydoros Vogiatzis, Danny Giannakopoulou, Miranda Zisimopoulou, Orestes Karydas, Aggeliki Karistinou, Anna Koutsaftiki, Nestoras Kopsidas, Aspasia Kralli, Vassilis Margetis, Dimitra Matsouka, Nicholas Piperas, Thanassis Sarantos, Stratos Tzortzoglou.
Photographs for the program: Orfeas Emirzas, Thomas Arsenis
Video: plays2place productions
Coproduction: The French Institute of Greece & The Michael Cacoyannis Foundation
The plays: “La Demande d’ emploi” Pièce en trente morceaux by Michel Vinaver, “Médée, poème enragé” by Jean-René Lemoine, and “Hilda” by Marie NDiaye are available from AGRA publications.
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Olivier Descotes
Cooperations and Cultural Action Consultant
General Director of the French Institute of Athens
In Greece theatre remains a popular art. Since my arrival in Athens in 2011, my aim has been, through means traditionally propitious to theatrical expression, to revive the theatrical relationship between France and Greece. Through a policy which supports the translation, production and presentation of works, we contribute to the revival of Greek practice of French theatre, standing by the new generation of artists as well as the audience. Our efforts must be in conjunction with a continuous commitment from both institutions and artists from both countries. The Michael Cacoyannis Foundation is one of our collaborators who shares this vision and the organization of the Festival French Theatre à la Grecque is proof. This year, the opportunity has been given to five directors, Yiannis Skourletis, Themelis Glynatsis, Thanassis Sarantos, Lefteris Giovanidis and Vassilis Mavrogeorgiou to present new scripts from French dramaturgy by Jean Genet, Claudine Galéa, Michel Vinaver, Jean-René Lemoine and Marie NDiaye. Subsequently three of the scripts will be published by AGRA publications. I would like to thank the whole team at the Michael Cacoyannis Foundation and the translators but most of all the actors whom, through their talent in their craft, relay the messages of the times.
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Yannoulla Wakefield-Cacoyanni
Chairman of the Michael Cacoyannis Foundation
The Michael Cacoyannis Foundation was one of the first to join in the initiative taken by the French Institute in 2011 for a dynamic reinforcement of the cultural exchange between Greece and France and collaboration of institutions and intellectual and artistic personalities. This collaboration was a strategic decision on our part as from the beginning of its operation, the MCF had set as one of its main goals, the creation of a place where cultures and ideas would meet, where young artists could experiment freely. This year we are organizing, with the French Institute, the Contemporary Theatre Festival, “French Theatre à la Grecque” where five young Greek directors, whom have all left their mark on modern Greek theatre, will be tested with five contemporary French scripts, each director offering his own interpretation of these unexpected, subversive and enquiring texts. The works are being presented for the first time in Greece, especially translated for the Festival by renowned names of the art and literary world. In a world constantly in motion and in turmoil, this festival proves its intercultural nature. It abolishes stereotypes. What’s more the “most French” of the five writers , the great Jean Genet, one of the most free-spirited and controversial writers of the 20th century, was born of unknown parents.
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In a few words:
* “Elle” by Jean Genet
Tuesday 6, Wednesday 7, Thursday 8 & Friday 9 May 2014, at 21:00
Forerunner of the theatre of the absurd, a prominent and controversial novelist, blasphemous and poetic, ingenious and provocative, teetering daringly on the brink, but always in harmony with his own truth and theory of life, Jean Genet wrote the play “Elle” in 1955. The work, which discusses matters of power and personal identity, was neither published nor staged while the writer was alive and many believe it to be the precursor to his other provocative play “Le Balcon” which was presented two years later.
“Elle” is a harsh, lyrical work, somber yet ridiculous, based on the mechanism of power and its enticing snares. A work about “self”, the image and their sad in between. The play is about a photographer, the Pope, his “Holiness”, the eternal muse, she which Genet loved to hate more than any other. This is why he uses quotations: it is not Her, but “Her”, her sanctity and holiness closed up, boarded in and protected.
“Elle” by Jean Genet
Translation to Greek: Asimenia Euthimiou
Direction: Yiannis Skourletis/ Bijoux de kant
Performing: Stratos Tzortzoglou, Polydoros Vogiatzis, Orestes Karydas
Bijoux de kant
Music: Costas Dalakouras
Assistant Director: Electra Ellinikioti
Set design: Yiannis Skourletis, Pericles Pravitas, Dio Liakoura
Movement: Tasos Karachalios
Lighting: Christina Thanasoula
Photo: Panos Michael
Communication Manager: Aris Asproulis
Appropriate for ages 15 and above
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“Au Bord” by Claudine Galea
Saturday 10, Sunday 11, Tuesday 13 & Wednesday 14 May 2014, at 21:00
Grand Prix of Theatrical Literature 2011, France
Hailing from Malta, Claudine Galea grew up in Marseilles and lives in Paris. She studied philology and worked as an actress and in Greece is known for the performances of her works “Erchomai apo Makria” (“Je reviens de loin”), 2009 and “Kontorevithoula” (“Petite Poucet”), 2013, and her participation in the open discussion entitled “Apenanti apo to Diaforetiko” (“Facing Diversity”). She writes plays, novels and stories for adults, teenagers and children. During the festival her play “Au Bord”, which won the Grand Prix of Theatrical Literature in France in 2011, will be presented for the first time.
Prompted by gruesome photographs of Abu Ghraib prison published in the Washington Post in 2004, Claudine Galea’s “Au Bord”, using coarse, complex and harshly honest prose, explores the place of a contemporary European writer in relation to the atrocity of war and to politics as well as love and memory and image, seeking some hope for redemption.
“Au Bord” by Claudine Galea
Translation to Greek: Dimitris Dimitriades
Direction: Themelis Glynatsis
Set design and sound: Andrianos Zacharias
Lighting: Melina Mascha
Performing: Woman: Aspasia Kralli, A Body: Nestoras Kopsidas
Appropriate for ages 18 and above
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“La Demande d’emploi” Pièce en trente morceaux by Michel Vinaver
Tuesday 20, Wednesday 21, Thursday 22, and Friday 23 May 2014, at 21:00
One of the greatest contemporary playwrights of French theatre, Michel Vinaver, was born in Paris in 1927 to Russian parents. He enrolled in the Free French Forces in 1944 and over time rose to the position of a highest ranking officer. Following that he became the owner of the subsidiary companies of the multinational Gillette. His plays are closely connected to historical events and in most of his works he places man in an environment of financial exchange.
In his play, “La Demande d’emploi: Pièce en trente morceaux”, the meaning of Work in the capitalist world is discovered via subtle humour as so is the introduction of the technocratic method of production into the human psyche as opposed to basic human desire. The entrapment of man in the never-ending pursuit of money and artificial bliss whilst all around moral values crumble and a mockery is made of vested rights.
“La Demande d’ emploi: Pièce en trente morceaux” by Michel Vinaver
Translation to Greek: Dimitra Kondilaki
Direction: Thanassis Sarantos
Set design-costumes: Vassiliki Syrma
Movement: Olga Spyraki
Assistant Director: Emi Panourgia
Lighting: Savvas Sourmelidis
hairstyling by xstudios
Performing (in alphabetical order):
Miranda Zisimopoulou, Aggeliki Karistinou, Vassilis Margetis, Thanassis Sarantos
Appropriate for all ages
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“Médée, poème enragé” by Jean-René Lemoine
Tuesday 27, Wednesday 28, Thursday 29 and Friday 30 May 2014, at 21:00
The award-winning writer, for his plays, and director, Jean- René Lemoine, was born in Haiti in 1959 and lived in Zaire and Belgium, later working as an actor in Italy and France and finally settling in Paris in 1989 where he collaborates with the Academy of Experimental Theatre, founded the Erzuli company (1997), writes play, teaches, directs and acts.
In the play “Médée, poème enragé”, Jean-René Lemoine draws upon myth and tragedy and the mysteries of love and passion but also from the deepest wounds of betrayal, from compliancy and guilt to compose a song of a multiple exile. Medea, banished not only from her homeland and family, but from her own self and identity, forever wandering, a stranger without a home, a tramp, ultimately denied the love which defined her life, struggling to remember, to relive her story, to be reconciled with herself. Medeas utter loneliness is culminated at this exact point where the enamored and betrayed woman meets the black princess, a scorned and abused figure in a world which denies diversity, enforcing its own laws of violence.
Médée, poème enragé, by Jean-René Lemoine
Translation to Greek: Effie Giannopoulou
Direction: Lefteris Giovanidis
Performing: Dimitra Matsouka
Appropriate for ages 18 and above
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“Hilda” by Marie NDiaye
Saturday 31 May, Sunday 1, Monday 2 & Tuesday 3 June 2014, at 21:00
Born in 1967 in central northern France to a French mother and Senegalese Father, Marie NDiaye started writing at 12-13 years of age and studied at the Sorbonne. She has received both the Femina Award (2001) and the Goncourt (2009) for her novels and her plays have been shown regularly in theatres since the year 2000. The literary magazine La Quinzaine littéraire described Marie NDiaye has “having found her own totally unique way of talking of subjects which belong to us all”.
In her play “Hilda”, the heroes are a young maid, Hilda, and her mistress. The writer dives into the depths of the eternal existence of the relationship between master and servant, superior and inferior, strong and weak. A story about the alienation of identity and the utopia of coexistence. Hildas mistress wants to give life to her confused and utopian ideas regarding freedom, democracy and equality whilst Hilda herself quite simply just wants to remain a maid. A catastrophic story!
“Hilda” by Marie NDiaye
Translation to Greek: Andreas Staikos
Direction: Vassilis Mavrogeorgiou
Set design-costumes: Constantinos Zamanis
Lighting: Stella Kaltsou
Performing: Anna Koutsaftiki, Nicholas Piperas, Danny Giannakopoulou
Appropriate for all ages
