Premieres to hit theaters
Three new premieres are about to hit the Athenian theater scene this week, with the Proskinio raising its curtains on March 10 and the Thiseion and Kathreftis theaters following suit the day after. The Proskinio (8 Kapnokoptiriou & Stournari) is set to premiere Vassilis Alexakis’s debut play/monologue, «I Don’t,» directed by Giorgos Economou and starring Constantinos Tzoumas in the triple roles of a young man who cannot express himself, a neurotic professor who studies a dictionary of the Greek language and, finally, a man who is unable to control the movement of his hands. The sets and costumes for the performance, which is scheduled for a three-week run, are designed by Costas Velinopoulos and also features an appearance by actress Vassiliki Kypraiou. The next day, the Thiseion Theater (7 Tournavitou, Psyrri) will present the joint forces of two innovative German artists, Helgard Haug and Daniel Wetzel, and Greece’s Michail Marmarinos in a show titled «Hot Spots» that will run until April 4. The play describes the intermeshed relationship between Athens and Berlin with the story of a tourist, an actor and a tour guide. The theme is twofold: On the one hand the issue of tourism as a mass culture, and on the other, war. What are the differences and similarities in the correspondence of soldiers at the front and tourists’ postcards back home? Marmarinos and his German colleagues examine holiday destinations through the tourists’ eyes and analyze the manner in which large groups of tourists appear to «occupy» and use these destinations. The same evening, the Kathreftis Theater, on the corner of Antiocheias and Pipinou streets, will stage the Japanese play «Hunting Rifle,» based on the book by Yasushi Inoue and directed in Greek by Pepi Economopoulou with sets and costumes by Aphrodite Koutsoudaki. The play is set in the aftermath of World War II and describes a tragic love affair between a divorced woman and her cousin’s husband as viewed by three different characters in three letters. In the lead roles are Giorgos Katsiyiannis, Agathi Kaltsa, Nana Papadaki and the director herself.
