"A performance demanding for the actors and enjoyable for the audience. Nervous, acidic, impulsive. (…) You will have some terrible conversations with your friends, about this project, the juice of which is enough to feed an entire city, maybe even a country. Very interesting case. Very interesting show" writes Kostas Koulis in keysmash for Servants, the theatrical performance directed by Alexandros Nikolaos Balamotis at Theater Space, which continue every Monday and Tuesday until December 5th.
It is an existential drama that emerged from the collaboration of the groups The Prodigy Theater Company and Naif and draws inspiration from Yakov, a mute character in Chekhov's The Seagull, to explore the question of the man who serves, the one who doesn't seem important enough to "star"; the insignificant.
"In this sea how do you swim...!"
One of the Servants says desperately. The heroes of the show feel that they live in a dead end. And they are looking for solutions.
The work was created by George Paterakis, Antonis Kyriakakis and Alexandros Nikolaos Balamotis to express thoughts, feelings, situations. All experienced. All through their work experience. How many differences are there between the servants/workers of Russia in 1895 and the artists of Greece in 2023? A lot. But also many similarities.
Their goal during the writing (4 weeks) was to construct a text that stands alone. For a person seeing theater for the first time, to be able to watch a complete story. Without needing to know the Seagull. That's why they never tried to imitate or copy Chekhov stylistically. They equally tried for the opposite. To use language that does not fit 1895. To make the characters more like people of today, than people of the Seagull era. Where the angst for daily survival joins the angst for meaning in our very existence. Their Servants live there. In this universe.
…
Case: We are in 1895 in a country house surrounded by estates in Russia. There 2 servants try to organize their lives and dreams. At the same time, they work for the caretaker Ilya Afaniasyevich Samrayev, as well as for the guests of honor of the owner of the estate Pyotr Nikolayevich Sorin. His sister Irina Nikolaevna Arkadina, her ambivalent son Konstantin Gavriilovich Trepliev and a bunch of other people who with their drama and exaggeration don't leave them alone.
The show is an existential comedy inspired by Yakov, an almost silent role in the play Gull by Anton Chekhov. His presence in Seagull it is so small that if it is removed, as it usually is, it changes nothing of the work. Focusing on the presence of such "insignificant" people and placing them at the center of the action, we watch through their eyes the events at Sorin's estate. How much "life" are servants allowed? They manage to dream and plan a better tomorrow or their marginally mute presence in the structure of Seagull, does it also reflect their silencing in relation to rights, desires, and their very existence?
In their first collaboration, The Prodigy Theater Company and Naif use Chekhov's play as an occasion to explore the question of the man who serves. Of the man who doesn't seem important enough to "star". How much theatrical, and not only, value does an invisible human existence have?
The text, which is uploaded for the first time, was created during the rehearsals with the Active Analysis technique of Constantin Stanislavski.
Coefficients
Directing – Dramaturgy: Alexandros Nikolaos Balamotis
Sets-Costumes: Ilias Petropoulos
Assistant Director & Lighting Design: Katerina Maria Saltaura
Sound Design: Mick Glykas
Photos: Alexandra Riba
Contact: Marika Arvanitopoulou
Rehearsal space: Omicron3
Create trailer: Stefanos Kosmidis Orki Productions
Production: The Prodigy Theater Company & Naif
Text creators: Alexandros Nikolaos Balamotis, Antonis Kyriakakis, George Paterakis
Starring Antonis Kyriakakis and George Paterakis
The voices of Lena Bozakis and Dionysis Pifeas are heard in the roles of Nina and Trepliev from Seagull by Anton Chekhov translated by David Maltese.
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