Live the Athens EpidaurusexperienceFestival

Not to miss while in Greece, the performances of the historical festival also take place in iconic ancient monuments, such as the Roman Odeon of Herodes Atticus at the feet of the Acropolis and the 4th c. BC Ancient Theatre of Epidaurus (a 2 hours drive south of Athens)

By Ioanna Gomouza

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Odeon Of Herodes Atticus

Philippe Quesne – The garden of delights (4/8, 21:00)

French director and visual artist Philippe Quesne, renowned for his visually arresting and iconoclastic performances, takes over the Odeon of Herodes Atticus stage with a production inspired by Hieronymus Bosch’s Renaissance painting “The Garden of Earthly Delights”. Much like Bosch, Quesne conjures an allegorical feast for the eyes, a dreamlike scenery walking a fine line between utopia and dystopia, bliss and lust, the enigmatic and the grotesque, reminiscent of an amusement park.

Ancient Theatre Of Epidaurus

Frank Castorf – Medea (21 & 22/7, 21:00)

For his first ever Epidaurus performance, the avantgarde artist and historic director of Berlin’s Volksbühne is staging his version of “Medea”; a play based on the tragedy by Euripides and also German writer Heiner Müller’s and "poète maudit" Arthur Rimbaud’s work. Castorf’s theatre is extreme and innovative, drawing on an intensely visual language and a strikingly contemporary, intense mode of acting.

Efi Birba – The frogs by Aristophanes (28 & 29/7, 21:00)

Athens is in a deep political and spiritual crisis, a crisis of ethics and values. Amid the arid and ominous reality of the polis, Dionysus, father and initiator of the theater, embarks on a journey to the underworld to bring back poetry and save the collapsing world. The weaknesses of the living and the dead emerge through the cracks of the play’s comical vein, while the foul waters of reality are shaken.

Giorgos Skevas – Oedipus at Colonus by Sophocles (4 & 5/8, 21:00)

This performance brings to the fore the ambiguous, pending finale of king of Thebes, Oedipus, marked by fate. Sophocles’ language, the words uttered by his characters, Oedipus, Antigone, Ismene, Polynices, Creon, do not invite a definitive separation of good from evil, the sacred from the blasphemous. Through the bodies’ music, this language becomes an eternal place, the eternal oracle.

Io Voulgaraki – Hecuba by Euripides (11 & 12/8, 21:00)

In Euripides’ eponymous tragedy, Hecuba emerges as a character from the place of mourning. In the first part of the play, mourning, both individual and collective, seemingly gives birth to its metaphysics: the living and the dead are locked in a constant dialogue. In “Hecuba” everything unfolds at a liminal time, after the end of the war. Nevertheless, violence is not over yet. It is precisely here, at this transitional time, where mourning-style Hecuba becomes revenge-style Hecuba, opening up a provocative dialectics with the present.

Christos Sougaris – The Trojan Women by Euripides (18 & 19/8, 21:00)

The play, the only extant tragedy of Euripides’ trilogy about the Trojan War, was premiered in 415 BC and presents the human dimension of the enemy. The poet attempts to warn us about the consequences arising from the victors’ impunity, reminding us also of the importance of remaining human, away from a false sense of omnipotence caused by temporary victories.

Simos Kakalas – Oedipus Rex by Sophocles (25 & 26/8, 21:00)

In this performance, approached as a ritual of purification, a group of actors wearing masks of elders comprises the writhing, mourning chorus in agony. Through this chorus, the tragic characters, namely Oedipus, Jocasta, Teiresias and Creon, are revealed.

Little Theatre Of Ancient Epidaurus

Pantelis Flatsousis – Thebes: A Global Civil War (21 & 22/7, 21:00)

In this new play, inspired by Aeschylus’ “Seven Against Thebes” theatre director Pantelis Flatsousis investigates the connection between the stage and recent history, focusing on the phenomenon of civil war. Four actors from Bosnia, Greece, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Lebanon investigate why war, though loathed by everybody, continues to shape human destiny.

Sarantos Georgios Zervoulakos –Philoctetes (28 & 29/7, 21:30)

Commissioned by the Athens Epidaurus Festival, the play is inspired by Sophocles’ “Philoctetes”. The eponymous character is a leading member of an armed revolutionary organization, who following an unsuccessful attack, finds refuge in a place of selfexile, tormented by guilt. Years later, two younger members of the organization are trying to convince him to go back in action.

Takis Tzamargias – You Can’t Tie a Mustang Down (4 & 5/7, 21:30)

Inspired by Euripides’ “Ion”, this new play by writer Christos Chomenidis introduces us to a character who chooses a solitary and healthy co-existence with nature, its joys and feasts, and refuses to get involved in public affairs and their corrupting effect.