"The city": Kostas Tsianos Theatre

Its production Thessalian Theatre which moved and brought back important historical memories of the city, continues its journey, after the great response of the public, with a limited number of performances in Kostas Tsianos theater.

Th. Th. honors the city of Larissa, its great spiritual man, psychiatrist and writer Makis Lachanas and the 100 years of the Asia Minor Disaster, presenting the novel of the well-known Larissaian writer entitled The City, Fictional Anthropogeography of Larissa, adapted and directed by Dimitris I. Tsoumanis.

Performance dates:

Monday 31 October – start time 9pm.

Tuesday 1 November – start time 9pm.

Monday 7 November – start time 9pm.

Tuesday 8 November – start time 9pm.

Information - seat reservations at 2410533417 Monday - Friday 10:00-14:30.

Pre-sale: viva.gr

General admission 5 euros

Performance duration: 90 minutes

The writer

The psychiatrist and writer Makis Lachanas (1924-2010) was a point of reference for Larissa. He studied medicine in Thessaloniki, neurology in Munich and psychiatry in Tübingen. In addition to his scientific work on schizophrenia, he wrote short stories, novels, poems, plays and essays. He distinguished himself for his translation work, while publishing the literary magazine from 1976 and for decades Seeding.

The show

Polis, a fictional anthropo-geography of Larissa, is the last work of Lachanas. It was published in 2009, a year before his death, and is dedicated to refugees around the world.

The author recreates memories from his own family, who lived in the prosperous Adrianople, in Eastern Thrace. The narrative begins in 1912, before the outbreak of the First Balkan War. The women and children of the Floria family, who traded the silk of Adrianople in the Danubian countries, are forced to leave the city.

Looking for shelter, they end up in Larissa. The family is placed in an old mansion in Agios Konstantinos (a neighborhood of wealthy Muslims in the Ottoman era), where they have to live together with families from different places who come in waves, until 1922, when the refugees from Smyrna arrive: this is the context in which Lachanas unfolds the narrative of Larissa, during the interwar period, through the eyes of the refugees and through his personal memories.

The stories that make up the show's raw material are often surprising. Faces and situations make up a large mosaic, the mosaic of a city cruel but also deeply human, contradictory and almost pagan. With a pivotal year in 1941, a year of martyrdom, when within a few days the city is hit by bombings and a strong earthquake and is almost completely leveled.

From the ruins of the old Larissa emerges the new Larissa, another city, just as the Greek Larissa emerges from the Ottoman one before: the transformation, the great theme that runs through the whole book and the show. The initially hostile city for the refugees, which then becomes their new home, the womb, the melting pot of new life.

THE IDENTITY OF THE SHOW

Adaptation-direction: Dimitris I. Tsoumanis

Actors: Christina Vraka, Dimitris Ontos

Accordion: Manolis Dallas

Electronic music: Sot-K

Production direction: Nikos Georgakis

Photos: Makis Papatriandafillou

Sound: Giorgos Golantas

Dresser: Nicoleta Kaisis

Stage engineers: Christos Karakis, Nikos Andrianopoulos

Promotional photos: Alexandros Efthymiopoulos

Photos of the show: Yiannis Hatjiantoniou

Poster: Smudge

Special thanks to costume designer-theatreologist Ilia Sdrallis and choreographer Anastasia Bruziotis.

Major Sponsors: INTERCOMM FOODS – Schools N. Bakoyannis – Efilial Travel