"Breath" - Four short plays by Samuel Beckett directed by Stavros Tsakiris
Dates of performances: 26-03-2011 to 17-04-2011


The director Stavros Tsakiris creates a performance with four short plays of the Nobel award winner author Samuel Beckett: "A piece of Monologue", "Rockaby", "Come and Go" and "Cascando" (first world presentation in theatre). The performance, translated by Dimitra Petropoulou while the costumes were designed by Yiannis Metzikov, is organized over artistic installations by Antonis Volanakis, Giannis Diamantis, Eleftheria Deco and Alexandros Psichoulis -all young artists- who were inspired and created these works especially for this performance.

"Breath" is a play written by Beckett to be used as an introduction to "Oh! Calcutta". In a moving image and two sounds Beckett encapsulated his philosophy, but also his whole theatrical universe. The two unique events in a man's life are his birth and death. The time in between is a "moving" image of a unique landscape. This short play is the canvass for the performance of "Breath", around which evolve, like concentric circles, his other short plays, displaying the brute sarcasm and the dark humorous outlook of the Nobel award winner author.

In "A piece of Monologue", a life filled with memories of a landscape that is barely seen through the darkness, a lonely man looking at an empty wall with the marks of photographs that used to cover it, an old lamp that cannot be lighted and the memories of the... "almost called them loved ones". He tries to bring order to the scattered images of his memories. Before his birth, during his lifetime, but also to imagine life after his death. Light, like a gift, comes at some point, dim and distant, when it chooses to emerge by itself. When it is gone, impenetrable darkness descends again. Darkness is the natural state of the universe. Man's only possibility for reacting is the flare of matches and the lamp he tries to light up. A petty opportunity within the vast darkness of eternity.
Actor: Prokopis Politis, Stavros Tsakiris

"Rockaby". From the cradle, when we were infants, to the rocking chair, which embraces us in the time of maturity, everything is a search for the "other". A continuous on-the-spot movement like a lullaby. This lack is not a conviction nor is absence a cold-hearted neglect. But for ontological Beckett this is the nature of things. A Sisyphean irrational project. Hope for any change is naiveté. Every emotional outburst is an act of loquaciousness. Despair is ignorance.
Actor: Tatiana Papamoschou

In "Come and Go", three women, through 125 words, describe their common past, their agony for the future but also their faith in the everlasting friendship that binds them together. They come and go as well, like the days, like the events in a life. Everything passes, to be replaced by something other, nothing ever changes... Even the illness that so frightens people is a secret that the "interested party" will never be able to fathom.
Are all the changes just an illusion created by movement?


"Cascando" is a music term indicating the decrease of volume and the simultaneous deceleration of tempo. An Opener and a VOICE. Two people, one consciousness. The creator's anxiety (author, director, actor) for any kind of "Story", which will be his creation but at the same time his salvation. The work of art as an act of closure for the artist and the effort to communicate with the "audience".
Here, the two roles are two women participating in a concert for two pianos. Following the whole course of a concert, they fight trying to save themselves from the incorporeal work. Psychic pain becomes corporeal and turns into labor. The imaginary hero is the subject matter. The location, the materials of the narration, the technique of writing. Music as the artistic language par excellence... And among all these, the audience, oppressor or oppressed?
Actors: Hilda Iliopoulou and Tatiana Papamoschou

The new translation of Dimitra Petropoulou, which was made specifically for the performance, together with the material of the performance, but also new information about the writings of Beckett is available from the Aigokeros Publications.

CREDITS
Directed by: Stavros Tsakiris
Translation: Dimitra Petropoulou
Costumes: Yiannis Metzikov
Performer: Tatiana Papamoschou, Hilda Iliopoulou, Prokopis Politis, Elena Kaiafa, Stefania Mpaglatzi, Irva Chatzitsakou, Stavros Tsakiris

Each play is set on an Artistic Installation.

The following artists participate: Antonis Volanakis, Giannis Diamantis, Eleftheria Deco, Alexandros Psichoulis
Video art: Nadia Skourti
Motivation: Maria Aggelou
Photographs: Dimitris Stoupakis
Audio processing: Correct Studio
Poster/Programm: Vangelis Nikolaou
Duration: 75 minutes

Production: Omicron 2, a company for the arts