A Greek debut for Pinter?s ?Hothouse?
Harold Pinter?s 1958 tragicomedy ?The Hothouse,? is finally making its debut in Greece, in a production directed by Lefteris Voyatzis at the Odou Kykladon Theater.
Penned by the late English playwright who died in 2008, the play takes place on Christman Eve in a state institution, when Patient 6459 gives birth to a baby boy and Patient 6457 is found dead. What happened? Who is the baby child?s father? And how did 6457 die and get buried in all secrecy?
One of Pinter?s early works, ?The Hothouse? was written after ?The Birthday Party? and ?The Dumb Waiter? and before ?The Caretaker.? Hidden away in one of the playwright?s drawers until 1979, it was staged in 1980 in a production directed by Pinter himself. The play met with major success and in a subsequent staging in 1995 the author took on the lead role of Roote, the institution?s director.
A higly prophetic and discerning 20th-century play, ?The Hothouse? is a political satire with Beckettian echoes, exploring the monster-like complexity of the state machine along with the notions of arbitration, buraucratic distortion and the resulting corruption. The play unfolds at a state institution where invisible patients, referred to only by their numbers, are interrogated and ill-treated by the corrupt and power-thirsty staff.
The Odou Kykladon Theater?s production is based on a translation by Ninos-Fenek Mikelidis. The cast is led by Voyatzis, Pantelis Dentakis, Dimitris Imellos, Alexia Kaltsiki and Vassilis Koukalani.
Odou Kykladon Theater, 11 Kykladon
