‘The Blood that Dried Up’ on Strefi Hill
Ochi Paizoume is a theater company that puts on few yet exceptional stage plays. Last summer, audiences came across the particularly interesting offering of «Heart with Bones: The Life and Adventures of the Poet Napoleon Lapathiotis,» which was performed at the Lapathiotis Residence in Exarchia. This year the group is presenting the work of Akis Dimou, «The Blood that Dried Up,» which is based on the novel «Wax Doll» by Constantinos Christomanos. The production will be performed until August 10 at the new, spacious and cool white building on Strefi Hill (68 Kallidromiou). George Sachinis (founder of the Ochi Paizoume theater company) is directing the play. In the play, people and ghosts live together, concealed in the peacefulness of the cliff, far away from the scorching heat of the sun and the greedy eyes of passers-by. Hidden away, they arrange their gardens, their weddings, and their beds. At night the playful moon teases the grilles. Hiding in their houses, it flickers on their cheeks, it wets their hair. It reminds them that once they did not live in secret. Pioneer Christomanos, founder of the Nea Skini and a leading director at the beginning of the 20th century, was a true representative of the collaboration of naturalism and symbolism. Burdened with mobility problems resulting from a childhood accident and distraught at the murder of his beloved Empress Sissy, he started publishing episodes from the «Wax Doll» in 1908, but the paper Patris suddenly stopped printing the articles at the point where his work began to change from moral commentary into dark metaphysics. The episodes were published as a book in 1911, shortly after his death.
