A uniquely energetic, poetic, political tragedy, that the public does not often have the opportunity to attend, is the summer production of the National Theatre of Northern Greece. About the play The conflict between the two sons of Oedipus is the theme of “Seven Against Thebes”. After his appalling actions were revealed to him, Oedipus left the throne to his two sons, Eteocles and Polynices. The two agreed to rule Thebes alternately. However, when the time came for Polynices to take reign, Eteocles did not keep his promise. This provoked the wrath of Polynices, who allied with the king of Argos Adrastus and organized a military campaign against Thebes. Seven leaders of each of the two rival armies lined up on either side of the seven gates of Thebes. Eteocles and Polynices faced one another in front of the seventh gate. Eteocles is the lonely main character of the tragedy. Thebes is under siege and he is trying to organize a counter-attack in a battle doomed to end without a real winner. Director’s Note It seems, that all of us –not only people in Greece, but the people in the whole of Europe– are living with a feeling as if deathly threatening enemies are standing outside the fragile walls of our common miserable, but still comfortable, lives. We don’t know the name of the enemy – our enemy has many masks, many names. Sometimes it even seems that our worst enemy has our own face, our own name. We need a tragedy, in order to rediscover again that we are, nevertheless, humans and that our human fate is to be united. The iron and steel will turn to dust, we will remain in existence. The team of creators of Seven Against Thebes are taking a challenge to explore, how the instinct of our common survival is going along with our need to remain human… which we have inherited from our ancestors, and which we are obliged to pass to our own children, against fear, against insecurity, against desperation.