Playhouse goes for love and lunacy
A lunatic asylum suspended outside time is featured in a play by Lope de Vega (1562-1635), which premiered at the Amphitheatro playhouse recently, accompanied by the strains of jazz and cabaret music. Directed by Spyros Evangelatos, «Madness in Valencia» is set in the Spanish city in a lunatic asylum in which a young man and a young woman feign madness – each for different reasons. They fall in love, each convinced that the other is mad, while the other inmates of the institution, both the men and the women, also feel the pull of their attraction for one another. «The work feels like a play by Pirandello and is ahead of its time in presenting the game of appearances and reality,» were Spyros Evangelatos’s comments at a recent press conference on the play. The work is being produced for the first time in Greece and is only the fourth work by Lope de Vega to be performed in this country. «He was a contemporary of Shakespeare’s, and if it can be said that Shakespeare had one eye on his takings and the other on eternity, one might add that Lope de Vega had one and a half eyes on his takings,» Evangelatos added. The production’s sets and costumes are by Maria Konomi; the music is by Stephanos Gazouleas, musical direction by Nikos Vassileiou and the choreography by Eirini Tsotra. The cast includes Giorgos Krontiris, Nikos Yiachalis, Thanassis Kourbalas, Sophia Petropoulou, Vivian Kontomari, Giorgos Bougos, Matina Kartsiouna, Constantinos Georgiou, Spyros Markopoulos, Antonis Maros, Dimitris Yiotis and Lefteris Veniadis. «Madness in Valencia» will alternate with other productions over the next two months.«Madness in Valencia,» is at the Amphitheatro playhouse, 111 Adrianou, Plaka, tel 323.3644.
