An unusual staging of Solomos’s ‘Free Besieged’
The audience sits on a platform elevated some 2 or 3 meters above the ditch in which the actors perform. This brand-new, non-conventional stage has been set up at the warehouses of the Metron company in Rendi, near Piraeus, and will be there for just a few days, until October 14, hosting Stavros Tsakiris’s latest piece of work, a play based on Dionysis Solomos’s poem «The Free Besieged.» The project began last spring, when the work premiered at the Roman Forum in central Athens, drawing from its beautiful surroundings. «What we are presenting now is something entirely different,» explains Tsakiris. Firstly, says the director, the concept of the space in which the play will be presented is different and it has, to a great extent, influenced the dramaturgy, allowing the audience to experience the feeling of being besieged. «Solomos was the springboard,» says the director. «The play is devised theater. It poses questions. What is a siege? Is freedom a conscious concept? What is the difference between freedom and liberality? Is bliss something that can be experienced during life on earth or is it something attained after death? The production also proposes a new approach to the theatrical venue more generally and to the different ways in which actors can work with a given play.» The musical motif (by Platonas Andritsakis) is complemented by sounds taken from nature, cries, whispers and moments of silence. The costumes for the performance are designed by Gabriella Noyman and Alexandra Siafkou, the video art is by Mary Sarantari and the design of the space and technical installations are by Loukas Hadzis. Metron, 15 Hadzianesti, Rendi, behind Allou Fun Park and the Olympic Volleyball Arena. For information, tel 210.425.1093.
