What is the relationship between Goebbels and Hadjiavatis? Cavafy and Cleopatra? Nionios and Churchill? And in what way is a monkey bite responsible for the Asia Minor expedition? Artifactory presents the shadow puppet performance for children and grown-ups Karagiozis in 31 B.C. in Alexandria, inspired by C.P. Cavafy’s poem “In 31 B.C. in Alexandria”.
The piece discusses the naval battle of Actium, a significant event in the Hellenistic antiquity era. It provides a unique perspective that raises contemporary issues related to misinformation, the peculiar nature of war, and the impact of fake news on shaping public opinion. The performance is part of the interdisciplinary, multi-faceted project Cavafy: 4 poems about Nikopolis, which aims to link Cavafy’s poetic universe and his connection to antiquity, as portrayed in these four poems, with the archaeological site of Nikopolis and its history.
In the performance A Brilliant Elegy for Anthoula Stathopoulou, a poetess walks the fine line between life and death. As her end is near, she strives to hold onto the words she has served throughout her life. Giannis Soldatos and Efi Venianakis’ direction focuses on the meticulous handling and special accentuation of every word. Words turn into “stage props” and are pronounced with special emphasis, without mannerisms. The themes of human existential agony, decay, and death remain boldly relevant in this work’s poetic universe, as our era is also confronted with the same enduring questions.
Anthoula Stathopoulou passed away at the age of 27, in spring 1935, leaving behind a significant poetic body of work. In the exhibition accompanying the performance, the present day is linked to the past, through photographs from abandoned sanatoria, not as a realistic account but as a visual historiography. Their special identity leads them into the complex paths revealed by memory in 20th-century mythography.
In the highly charged space of the Nekromanteion of Acheron in Preveza, we watch the final moments of a dying woman who, standing on the verge between life and death, struggles to understand and accept her imminent end. Solely relying on her voice and memories from the Greek tradition and literature, she becomes a conduit for the universal experience of death agony. She raves, sings, and tells stories, as if she wanted to console her own self, always having beside her a visible and at once invisible fellow traveller. The one who watches, accompanies her with his music, and eventually escorts her to her passing from the worldly to the otherworldly life. An effort to understand and purge the second part of the pair “Life and Death” – this so mundane and inextricable part of every being, that is yet so difficult to accept.