Theater bids for the limelight
A rich variety of theater, local and from overseas, is on the agenda at the Hellenic Festival this summer, starting in Athens and moving on to the two ancient theaters at Epidaurus later in the season. This year the stage is set for a veritable cornucopia of music and dance, with 36 musical performances and 34 theatrical productions (21 Greek and 13 foreign). The latter include an especially interesting cycle titled «From the Page to the Stage,» comprising eight theatrical adaptations of novels by Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Leo Tolstoy, Alexandros Papadiamantis, Dimitris Hadzis and Sotiris Dimitriou, Louis-Ferdinand Celine, Heiner Muller and Dimitris Dimitriadis. Dostoyevsky, who appears to be especially popular this year (Peter Brook recently presented «The Grand Inquisitor»), will feature this summer in a lavish Athens Festival production as Maya Lymberopoulou, who celebrates 50 years in the theater this year, has adapted, directed and stars in «The Possessed,» along with a strong cast, including Mania Papadimitriou, Anna Mascha, Constantinos Papachronis and others. The performance will be held at the Pireos 260 venue, July 22-31. The other great of Russian literature, Leo Tolstoy, had already been brought to the stage by Pyotr Fomenko in his adaptation of the first part of the first volume of «War and Peace» in an internationally acclaimed production. «The Destitute Dervish,» the famed hero of one of Papadiamantis’s few so-called «Athenian Tales,» provided the inspiration for director Thodoris Gonis on which to build his production of the same title. As the dervish, shunned by society and homeless, seeks shelter one night and plays his ney to find some solace, he is approached by the wanderers of the night, the characters of a mural of Athenian society in the late 19th and early 20th century. Each has a story and a song to tell, rendered by a fine group of artists: Nikos Xydakis for the music, Christos Bokoros for the sets, Angelos Mendis for the costumes, Katerina Marangoudaki on lighting and a cast led by Sophocles Peppas, Giorgos Moroyiannis and Manolis Mavromatakis. A coproduction between the Hellenic Festival and the Regional Municipal Theater of Agrinion, «The Destitute Dervish» will be performed at the Little Theater of Ancient Epidaurus on July 6 and 7. The Sfendoni Theater company will present «Dimitris Hadzis’s Stories» performed by a veteran of adaptations, Anna Kokkinou, who has been assisted by literature adviser Vassilis Dioskouridis. Hadzis’s highly popular stories paint a portrait of Greek history and society in the 20th century, zooming in on the modern Greek’s quest for a personal and national identity. The performance will be on stage at Pireos 260 from July 23 to 26. A slice of contemporary history, from both sides of the Greek-Albanian border, rendered in a caustic tone through the stories of individual characters, is provided by Sotiris Dimitriou in his novel «God Tells Them So.» Nikos Arvanitis has taken this material – so rich in dialects and mood – and adapted it to the stage, in a performance where he also stars, alongside Christos Ninis, Spyros Poulis and Karafil Sena. Three musicians (playing a band of Albanian gypsies who seek shelter with three builders, played by the actors), add their own color and feel to the performance, which will be staged at the Scholeion venue on June 20 to 23. The French epistolary novel by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos «Les liaisons dangereuses» has provided the basis of the acclaimed film by Roger Vadim, and also for Heinser Muller’s «Quartet,» among many others. The popularity of the novel married to Muller’s signature treatments, is bound to pique the theater aficionado’s interest rather than dull it, especially as the production is directed by Robert Wilson and stars Isabelle Huppert as the Marquise de Merteuil and Ariel Garcia Valdez as Valmont. The Greek National Opera will host the Hellenic Festival’s production from July 2 to 8. Modern Greek writing will be represented by Dimitris Dimitriadis’s «I’m Dying Like a Country,» directed by the highly capable Michail Marmarinos. «A performance with seven actors, 993 extras and a microphone,» is how the director’s original note first described the production. The writer himself will also participates in the performance, which will be held from July 14 to 16 at Pireos 260. The «From the Page to the Stage» program will also bring us the famed Volksbuhne Am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz theater company – one of the best and most radical companies in Europe today – in Celine’s «Nord,» directed by an enfant terrible of the East German scene, Frank Castorf. The performance stars Annekathrin Burger, Marc Hosemann, Irina Kastrinidis, Young-Shin Kim and Michael Klobe, among others. In similar vein to this cluster of performances, actor Vassilis Papavassiliou will give a reading of Friedrich Durrenmatt’s «The Death of Socrates» on July 11 at the Benaki Museum, which, in collaboration with the Hellenic Festival, is holding an exhibition of drawings that reveal the writer’s pictorial side, titled «Friedrich Durrenmatt’s Myths.» The exhibition runs through to July 29.
