ΤΗALASSINOI EROTES (2020)

Bourtzi Skiathos Cultural Centre

04.01.2020

Based on the celebrated triptych of love stories by Alexandros Papadiamantis, Thalassinoi Erotes is a theatrical exploration of desire, memory, and the poetic dimensions of human experience. First presented in 2011 during the Year of Papadiamantis and revived through successive performance cycles, the production was invited to Skiathos in 2020 by the Municipality of Skiathos and the Alexandros Papadiamantis House Museum to commemorate the 109th anniversary of the writer’s death. Through a performance language centred on voice, music, rhythm, and embodiment, Papadiamantis’ prose is transformed into a living theatrical experience, where female figures emerge as vessels of longing, memory, and transcendence. Engaging Maldoror’s axes of cultural memory and Greek writing and female identity and human experience, the production approaches Papadiamantis’ literary universe as a living field of artistic encounter, bringing the musicality, sensuality, and spiritual depth of his work into dialogue with the present.

©George Zorbas

Production Credits

Texts: Alexandros Papadiamantis
Original Direction: Mirka Yemendzakis
Lighting Design & Technical Supervision: George Zorbas
Music: Marietta Fafouti
Set & Costume Design: Vaggelis Papadakis
Performers: Maria Kastani (Love in the Snow), Lena Makri (Dream on the Wave), and Nana Papadaki (Eros – Hero)
Piano: Nandia Papandreou

©George Zorbas

Press / Rewiews

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was the poet. In times of multidimensional and multilayered crises, when we lose the ground beneath our feet—literally and metaphorically—our souls return to the enduring words of poets and spiritual visionaries, selfless beings who, upon leaving this vain world, offered more than they ever received. Going far beyond Jerzy Grotowski’s ‘poor theatre’, Mirka Yemendzakis uncovers the musicality of Papadiamantis and reveals it to her audience with the help of remarkable actors devoted to the sacred art of theatre. (…) A true initiation.”

— Konstantinos Bouras, Eleftherotypia

“At once narrators and protagonists, three female solo performers with flowing, melodic, consoling voices, restrained movement, and vibrant physical presence. In Thalassinoi Erotes, the delivery of Papadiamantis’ language is lucid and richly expressive. A virtuoso of vocal training with many years of experience, Mirka Yemendzakis returns for a fourth exploration of the Papadiamantis universe, highlighting the musicality and subtle eroticism of the Skiathian writer in a performance of remarkable simplicity.”

— Giorgos Vidalis, Eleftherotypia

“Through an inventive stage convention, sounds and meanings merge into a harmonious whole that awakens the intellect through the senses and the senses through the intellect. An atmospheric and ritualistic performance, like a sacred Dionysian ceremony, emerging from a snow-covered winter only to settle into a dangerously sensual spring, illuminating the most delicate shades of human desire with the mysterious and seductive blade of decay, death, and oblivion.”

— Maria Kyriaki, Epi Skinis

“There are certain performances from which audiences emerge astonished. Everyone leaves in profound silence, an inner stillness, as though they had attended a religious or initiatory rite.”

— D.M., Metropolis Magazine

©George Zorbas

Media / Links

Official page of Greek actress, director, poet, and writer Nana Papadaki, and of Maldoror, the non-profit company operating under her artistic direction.