new - News

 

“Aristophanes - Herondas: Contra tempo” is the title of the NTNG’s second summer production. It features creatively composed texts by Akis Dimou and is directed by Giannis Rigas. Aristophanes’ humour, wit and sharp tongue meet Heronda’s licentious comic mimes in a performance that is both a fascinating on-stage battle and a war between the sexes, with both sides armed with bold, merciless satire and that alone.

 

A few words about the play

Aristophanes is the greatest comic poet of Antiquity, Herondas the low-key ‘caricaturist’ of everyday Hellenistic life. What is it that divides them and what unites them?

Obviously, it’s this: they share the same goal: the laughter of the audience, who are invited to recognize the comic aspect of familiar evils in the work of both. Each man does what they can with the weapons at their disposal: Aristophanes composing ingenious, hilarious utopias of poetic inspiration and political awakening; Herondas narrating scenes from the private lives of the people of his time.

Their presence in the theatre marks the evolution of the art of theatre itself: from Aristophanes’ visionary conceptions of and reflections on human destiny to the straight-shooting drama of Herondas’ characters, and from the large stages and open horizons of the amphitheatres of Ancient Greece to the smaller chamber stages of the Hellenistic era’s indoor theatres.

Their amusing confrontation on the NTNG stage provides the perfect occasion for us to discuss the Then and the Now of Greece and its people. And, of course, to laugh our heads off as we do it.


 

More