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Readings of Contemporary Greek Theatre Plays > (21/06/2018)


The National Theatre of Northern Greece presents the Readings of Contemporary Greek Theatre Plays ‘’City’s Voices’’, in order to promote the Greek dramaturgy and the work of playwrights who live and work in Thessaloniki. The readings of the texts will take place at the Theatre of the Society for Macedonian Studies, on the following dates: 
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Free Entrance
A glass of wine is offered courtesy of Ktima Ligas.  
 

‘’20 urban one-act plays’’ by Dora Tsogia
Wednesday 4 July, at 21:30

In the play ‘’20 urban one-act plays’’ by Dora Tsogia (2016, publishing Agra), the characters move through a big city in places of public and private life. The subway (platform, carriages, ticket offices) but also the outdoor places (parks, public squares, cafes) make up the play’s civil landscape, which provides a positive perspective on a difficult daily routine: characters’ conversations and relationships seem like communication recipes, made from loneliness. Small talks in a big city, that compose a cinematic structure and the subject is people who are searching for other people.
  
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The possibility of a true connection among people appears in this play, but only if each one of them changes their path, so they can meet others. The subway, where many of the stories take place, traverses underground paths of the city. The people who come across each other on the platforms and in the carriages suddenly open up and they leave their own ‘’underground’’ world exposed, a world of hesitation, fear and desires. The passage through their underground world transforms them. A girl who roams the city in her red ankle boots, an eccentric man who leaves his ticket every morning, a man who’s hungry, a couple trapped in their loneliness, an old woman who looks for her dog and searches for a friend in the city, a young man who is jogging so he’ll get over his mourning, contemporary people who meet each other in the most unexpected ways. 
Director: Kiki Strataki
Actors: Stergios Tzaferis, Kiki Strataki, Anni Tsolakidou
 

‘’Dragon Lake’’ by Giorgos Chatzopoulos
Thursday 5 July, at 21:30

After a daylong hike, a group of six young people camp beside a Dragon lake at an altitude of two thousand meters. There, after a sequence of emotional scenes, each one of them being a value-based and existential verbal episode, a ‘’strange’’ man and his two silent companions visit them the same night. Things develop rapidly and unpredictably... In the second act of the play, we find ourselves in the same landscape but temporarily transferred to the past. The “strange” person, who unexpectedly appeared in the first act is also here, only this time, as protagonist, he becomes the victim of the irrational violence that tortured an entire generation and marked the next one, that of the Greek Civil War.
  
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‘’Dragon Lake’’ does not focus on the subsequent or contemporary management of the Civil War, where in the light of political and economic expediency, certain events were distorted or concealed, but intends to highlight the causes of savagery and inhumanity that characterized both the conflicting parts and to relate them to the failure of post-civil war culture, as it dominated the first half of the 20th century, to give meaning to the lives of the next generations and to provide solutions to the long-standing problems of Greek society.

Director: Melina Apostolidou
Actors: Melina Apostolidou, Natassa Daliaka, Pantelis Kalpakoglou, Giorgos Kolovos, Ioanna Pagiataki, Tasos Rodovitis, Dimitris Siakaras, Giorgos Sfyridis, Konstantinos Chatzisavvas.
 

‘’4 square meters’’ by Artemis Moustaklidou
Friday 6 July, at 21:30

Somewhere in the future, after a nuclear war, 5 people are shut away in a long narrow and long room: two women, a young man, an elderly gentleman and an elderly lady. They are the lucky ones; they survived the war and each one is intitled to a room of 4 square meters. Outside the building, others, not as lucky as them, wait around to take their place. They unquestioningly obey the orders of the Central Administration, which regulates everything, ensures the order, shares the amount of food and it gives the detainees 2 small pills, that they have to take every day, for the purpose of avoiding the radioactivity consequences.
  
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But are they sure that all this is necessary and that the Central Administration is telling them the truth? All their doubts will seem unimportant when the elderly lady dies. The elderly gentleman, inconsolable, mourns, while the three others panic: their priority is to prevent a new person from taking their place in their space. But their plans will be overturned and they will be forced to accept the punishment of the Administration. 

The play is based on Frenty Germanos’ story A place like an open heart… 
Director: Dimitris Tsilinikos
Actors: Marianna Avramaki, Natassa Daliaka, Chrysanthos Kagias, Christos Ntaraktsis, Giannis Panorios
 

‘’The cuties’’ by Eleni Merkenidou
Tuesday 10 July, at 21:30

It’s a comedy trilogy, probably postmodern and close to Aristofanes’ style, inspired by Odyssey. The Cuties are three magnificent women who leave a mark on Odysseus’ life during his nostos: Kirki-Moly the old maid (moly, her magic herb), with her obsession for bestiality, Kalypso-Kaly, with a weird collection of casts of asses and of course Penelope-Loupi the weaver, in menopause with presbyopia, but also with an insatiable sexual appetite. The arrival of This Odysseus reverses the everyday routine of each one, creating explosive events, with a variety of erotic surprises and a fair amount of perversion.

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Director: Efi Drosou
Actors: Maria Karamitri, Polyxeni Spyropoulou, Orestis Chalkias, Maria Chatziioannidou 
 

‘’A gibbet and a crepe, please’’ by Peny Fylaktaki
(based on the novel of Jean Teule Le Magasin des Suicides)
Wednesday 11 July, at 21:30

Sometimes, light is hidden in the heart of darkness; the more you reach to touch it, the more darkness surrounds you. The feeling of an anthem for life in a world consumed by death, penetrated me with the force of an electric shock, when I first read The Suicide Shop. And then, that distant surreal universe, that sick world which is thirsty for prominence and success even in the way of dying, became scarily present. And Tivas family shop became ours here and now, in a very used −as a cheap woman− sense of “crisis”, albeit seen from a different perspective. Beyond cruel reality, is sorrow contagious? Or even worse, a trend? And what happens when suddenly somebody fights for a smile? For a hand of help that he extends effortlessly? For a love that is out of fashion, out of season, out of bounds? Apparently we would kick him like a marginal, insane, perhaps dangerous person. As we did 2018 years ago…

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Director: Thanos Feretzelis
Actors: Marianna Avramaki, Telis Zacharakis, Eirini Mourelatou, Lilian Palantza, Christos Papadimitriou, Thanasis Raftopoulos

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