Friday, September 6 ONLY: 8pm performance followed by a post-show discussion moderated by Blanka Zizka, artistic director, The Wilma Theater.
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A co-presentation with The Wilma Theater
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"Attis Theatre and I personally are interested in working deeply in the core of each tragedy." Theodoros Terzopoulos, director of AJAX, the madness
"My belief that experiment can be combined with perfectly calibrated art was confirmed by an amazing Greek director, Theodoros Terzopoulos."
Michael Billington, The Guardian (UK)
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With his insane hand, bearing black sword, he murders.
Madness gets its own production. Theodoros Terzopoulos, an internationally acclaimed director of Greek tragedy, has created a contemporary study on war’s paranoia, violence, and conflict. Using select phrases from the Ancient Greek play by Sophocles, AJAX, the madness dives deep into the murderous insanity of a bloodstained hero at the core of the tragedy.
Ritual action and a triptych of mania, pathos, and satire upend this story of the Trojan War, of the great warrior Ajax who got out of his tent one night to take revenge on those who had insulted his honor, only to mistakenly slaughter a herd of animals because his brain had become addled by a goddess. In a visceral performance of absolute immediacy, three performers, trained in the fully immersive style of Attis Theatre, embody the ancient text with an extraordinary energy that electrifies the darkest recesses of the human soul.
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Direction Theodoros Terzopoulos Based upon Ajax by Sophocles Translation I. Gryparis Dramaturgical Collaborators Konstantinos Arvanitakis, Nikos Nomikos Lights Theodoros Terzopoulos, Konstantinos Bethanis Performers Tasos Dimas, Savvas Stroumpos, Meletis Ilias
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Theodoros Terzopoulos was born in the village of Makrygialos in northern Greece, the mythical birthplace of Euripides. He is a highly acclaimed director specializing in ancient tragedy. In 1982, he founded Attis Theatre in Athens, one of the most original experimental theater companies in Greece. He also founded the Theatre Olympics and was artistic director of its first edition in Delphi (1995), as well as the following editions in Shizuoka (1999), Moscow (2001), Istanbul (2006), and Manipur (2008). Since 1993, he has served as the chairman of the International Committee of the Theatre Olympics. In 2008, he coordinated the cultural program of the Olympic Games in Beijing.
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Festival Producer Robert M. Dever
Festival Co-Producers Sissie and Herb Lipton
