I meet him Theodoros Terzopoulos forty days after the premiere of the show “Waiting for Godot“, of Samuel Beckettin the Teatro Piccolo in Milan, which will now be presented by Roof of the Onassis Foundation. Thanks to Stegi’s re-call, the Athenian audience will have the rare opportunity to see one of the most important performances given by the leading Greek director abroad.
I am thinking of this particular performance: a cross intersects a large square in the center of the stage. It brings to mind a stone tombstone of those you find in deserted European cemeteries, a stern cover of a leather-bound Bible or even a stained glass window of a cathedral.
He explains to me that he calls it a “talking installation”, since all the elements of the performance – the music, the props, the actors’ voices and bodies – co-exist equally to convey the meanings of the text. I attempt an explanation, having first clarified that my object is not the theater. “Mine isn’t either,” he laughs. “Abroad, I am classified as an anthropologist and that’s right, I’m interested in man.”
“Quicksand”
He states that Beckett’s work is quicksand. “You are here and the text has gone further down, and where you go to approach the meaning, it has been moved elsewhere again. As with the ancient tragedies, Beckett’s “poetry” is characterized by the suspension of things. You can’t risk clear interpretations, you only have question marks. In “Gondo”, I struggled with the concept of the desolate landscape as defined in the play, because anything can be desolate. We can also feel alone in a crowded hotel room, in an airport waiting room. There are many places where there is a large audience and something is waiting and so I decided to see it through an otherworldly convention. I saw the work through the wilderness of religions.”
When the cross “opens”, also symbolizing the opening of time that takes place in Beckett, the two clozars, Vladimir and Estragon, appear lying down. “They’re flirting,” he explains. “That’s why they lie down, because they want moments of human contact, a look, a caress. This absolute impasse that we experience finally has an escape: it has the Other, the Opposite. They, although so different, are identical. It’s like one contains the other.”
He comments that there are two central axes in the work: to be able to communicate with our neighbor, but also with the Other within us, to get to know this unfathomable and dark area of repressed desires and fears. I notice that today there is neither time nor inclination among people for such “introspection”. “Today we are indifferent to ourselves and to others, there is not even the idea of hope, we are not waiting for anyone to save us. Man has cut himself off from his feeling, he has underestimated his senses. He walks around completely defeated. To laugh, to touch, to listen, to cry is important. To cry many tears is a revolutionary act.’
However, he states that he has great faith in young people. “The generation born after 2000 is different, very dynamic, with morals – this will bring about the upheaval. We adults did not prepare anything for them, we did not secure any creative jobs, only slave positions. This will mean hate, it will mean that we don’t see with perspective, we don’t care about the future. We hand over to them a state based on falsehood, profiteering, immorality, ephemerality and clientelism. However, they are tired of this and will change it, the game will be won. I can see it in the conversations I have with the young actors from his workshops.Attis“in rehearsals”.
“Abroad, I am classified as an anthropologist and that’s right, I’m interested in man.”
I understand that the teacher-student relationship is sacred for him, he is happy when he is addressed as teacher, his method is taught in every corner of the world, he also speaks with great admiration of his mentor, Heiner Miller. “My whole journey is an itinerary: from ancient tragedy to Miller, an aller retour is.”
“The Oresteia”
I ask him about theOresteia» his Aeschylusthe only extant trilogy of ancient drama that he will direct for the National Theater and will present in its context Athens – Epidaurus Festival. “I watched “Oresteia” by different directors and I didn’t understand. Most focus on Agamemnon, fascinated by the passions, the crimes, the family drama, and then the hardest part, the Hoiforos and them Eumenides, they kind of screw it up. I started backwards: with the Eumenides, the riddle, the establishment of the Supreme Court and the functioning of the Republic”.
I ask him to tell me which work of his would stand out. “I only retain moments of what I have done, fleeting images, often I don’t even remember the titles. However, I feel like there is a thread that takes me from one show to the next and it happens by instinct. I will answer you in the way that my friend and collaborator, Yiannis Kounellis, answered me when I asked him to name his favorite work. None, he told me. My favorite project I haven’t done yet. He was 80 years old when he said these things.”
Global Greek
Ultimately, does he feel Greek or a citizen of the world? Last October alone, his shows were played in 7 cities around the world: Philadelphia, Turin, Budapest, Taipei, Beijing, Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Montreal. Two thousand three hundred performances all over the world, this is a Greek invasion”.
“The generation born after 2000 is a generation of others, very dynamic, with morals – they will bring about the upheaval.”
I observe the living room where we are sitting, in one corner I see a computer screen. I wonder if it also does TV duty. “I don’t even turn on the radio anymore. You hear the same thing, a page keeps recycling. I comment on how in the show we will see at Stegi, the two outcasts repeat the same words, phrases. “However, these discussions take place without social events, in an empty space, and the interpretation and targeting are different. Beckett makes you think through simple vocabulary, everyday language. Simple texts usually have one level, Beckett has many and this is a great achievement of his writing, poetry and drama. It’s many games, not one. It plays with philosophy, sociology, ontology.”
Show duration from 15 to 19/5.
