“The Birthday Party” by Harold Pinter
Directed by George Paloumpis
Performing (in alphabetical order):
Pygmalion Dadakaridis, Alkistis Zirou, Fotis Thomaidis,
Giannos Perlegkas, Giannis Stefopoulos, Athena Tsilira
From November 10th
THEATER HALL
Stanley: (pause)…
Harold Pinter’s masterpiece, The Birthday Party at the Theater Hall of the Michael Cacoyannis, this November, directed by George Paloumpis, with the exquisite actors Pygmalion Dadakaridis, Alkisti Zirou, Fotis Thomaidis, Giannos Perlegkas, Giannis Stefopoulos and Athena Tsilira.
The great English playwright, Harold Pinter wrote The Birthday Party in 1957. Sixty four years later it has not ceased to be considered one of the most important and representative works of the avant-garde. It is included in the world theatrical repertoire, as it describes the entire worldview of Pinter for the freedom and self-determination of the individual.
One way of looking at speech is to say
that it is a constant stratagem to cover nakedness.
(Harold Pinter)
“An abandoned boarding house. A man who lives there. The owners of the abandoned boarding house who take care of the man who lives there. The girl who wants to go for a walk with the man who lives there. The men who come to find the man who lives there. A birthday party for the man who lives there. A birthday party for the man who – perhaps – does not have a birthday today”.
Trailer: https://youtu.be/xqC9MeUnDZI
DIRECTOR’S NOTE
“A work that will eternally scream the desire for a better world.”
“Threat comedy” is a term used to describe Pinter’s work with the most characteristic of the ‘genre’ being the Birthday Party. Certainly this term covers the two main elements of the play: Its humour and the threatening atmosphere. However, I do not think that the work can be limited to descriptions such as comedy or thriller. In the Birthday Party, Harold Pinter draws the spectator into a world which is both familiar yet extremely dangerous. Nothing is certain, nothing remains comfortably stable. The characters are introduced via certain data which is subsequently undone. Facts, names, places and times of the past all seem fluid. Everyone’s identity begins to appear fluid, as, perhaps, is human nature itself. This element of the play, therefore, gives it a rather existential aspect. The story, of course, is structured upon entirely fixed and classic rules. A house, a couple of characters who live there, and some strangers who come along and turn everything upside down. In the play, the present occurs smoothly and linearly without anachronisms in action and events.
As the three acts of the play unfold, the spectator has the feeling that he is watching a police thriller. Two mysterious strangers come to arrest a tenant with an enigmatic past. But the author does not seem to be interested in some form of revelation or the solving a riddle. In this fluid world that he has created, he is probably more concerned with the perpetrator – victim dipole, presenting, at times implicitly, and at others explicitly, an intense imposition of power. An imposition from man to man, from a powerful establishment to a possible apostate, from an invisible power over everyone. He is concerned by the man in the game of power where the correlations often change:
So what kind of a play is it, after all? I would say that it is everything together. I would say that it is a work that will eternally scream the desire for a better world.
CREATIVE TEAM
Translation: Antonis Galeos
Direction: George Paloumpis
Set – costumes: Natasha Papastergiou
Lighting design: Vasilis Clotsotiras
Music: Pavlos Katsivelis
Assistant director: Panagiota Papadimitriou
Assistant set-costume designer: Iris Skolidi & Teta Tsavdaridou
Photography: Nikos Reskos
Video: Thomas Palyvos
Performing (in alphabetical order):
Pygmalion Dadakaridis, Alkistis Ziro, Fotis Thomaidis,Giannos Perlegkas, Giannis Stefopoulos, Athena Tsilira
Production: Performing Arts & Entertainment LTD
Production management: Takis Georgas
Communication: Anna Theodosi atheodosi@gmail.com mob. 6977605271
PERFORMANCE DATES ANDTIMES:
Wednesday to Sunday
From 10/11/2021 until 16/01/2022
Wednesday & Sunday 19.00
Thursday & Friday 21.00