Alcinous, majesty, shining among your island people,
what a fine thing it is to listen to such a bard
as we have here—the man sings like a god.
The crown of life, I’d say. There’s nothing better
than when deep joy holds sway throughout the realm
and banqueters up and down the palace sit in ranks,
enthralled to hear the bard, and before them all, the tables
heaped with bread and meats, and drawing wine from a mixing bowl
the steward makes his rounds and keeps the winecups flowing.
This, to my mind, is the best that life can offer.
Homer’s “Odyssey”, Rhapsody ι’ 2-11, translated by Robert Fagles

In the afterglow of two performances that were destined to linger in memory, “NEKYIA”—presented with the Japanese theatre troupe NOH in 2015—and Sophocles’ “Trackers” in 2021, Michail Marmarinos revisits the Ancient Theatre of Epidaurus with yet another riveting dramaturgical proposal. Ηere, he orchestrates a return to the sources through a journey to three rhapsodies of the Homeric epic, confirming once more that the endless mystery of oral Storytelling (the cavernous mystery of Theatre itself) can still thrillingly propel us “there, where history is still occurring”.

The additional fragments of the “Iliad” in the performance are translated by D.N. Maronitis (Agra publications, 2012) and the excerpts from the “Aeneid” are from Theodoros Papangelis’ modern Greek translation (MIET publications, 2018).
In addition, there are fragments from Giannis Doukas’ modern Greek translation of Quintus of Smyrna’s “The Fall of Troy”.

DIRECTOR’S NOTE

TEXT ON THE BRONZE AGE

“Everything that lives within the Epic has a form, a personal existence: horses speak and foresee, rivers react like living entities, coincidence presupposes a divine intervention.
If for today's sensibility the Dawn is a natural phenomenon, for Homer it is a personified manifestation. So, we see her getting up from her bed.” […]
“Here, humans have not yet suffered the internal rift that will divide existence into mortal and immortal, rational and irrational. The Homeric person lives and acts as an unbroken unity, as a psychosomatic whole (unprecedented and unsurpassed for Western civilization) without divisions."
Kostis Papagiorgis, The Homeric battle, Kastaniotis editions, 1993

Really, what do we remember from the epics?
To what extent could that Age of Bronze – its homecomings and spirituality, its brutality and ethos – ideally infuse our current shadows with some kind of light?
To what extent could that culture of Aidos –of shame and reverence, modesty and respect– and its relationship with Nature and gods, the divine and the miraculous; its relationship with the Stranger, or the profound rite of hospitality – have something to say today about our own culture? Our own contemporary bewilderments?

After “NEKYIA” (rhapsody λ) – at the ancient theatre of Epidaurus with Japanese Noh theatre– another return to the sources... A fresh look at three rhapsodies of the epic and at how this endless mystery of oral narration (theatre’s most profound mystery) has the power to take us “there, where history is still occurring”.

A stranger – and an “Οίος”, too - as Homer calls him, meaning “all alone” - a wreck of a man after the total wreck of his ship, crushed by his unequal battle with the sea, cast upon a shore...
(Really, does this image remind us of anything from nowdays? Have we caught sight of anything like this – even just a glimpse – anywhere in the world of current affairs all round us?)
Here, on a foreign shore he did not choose, Fate decreed, he should seek and rediscover his body, his face, his name.

For 1,263 verses he remains unknown, faceless; a stranger. Only when he’s shed a first tear, and his subsequent silent sobs begin, does he embark on a journey of 'recognition'. As they seek to honour him (for there is always a hint of divinity in a stranger), to amuse his sufferings with Odes telling tales of heroes and of gods, they cannot know they are chanting his life...
But when, through the dignity of tears, he asks – he, a stranger! – to be allowed to continue the tale himself, making his entrance as a dramatis persona / a simulacrum in the theatre of his life, his unveiling will not be long in coming.
Thanks to the intricacy of the ancient poet’s dramaturgically singular conception (which is almost unique in the world repertoire), the tears have turned him into a spectator, a bard; a poet of his own life. Unveiled, he also recovers his name...

[There is a fundamental, vital desire that underlies our lives: to travel from a point A to a point B. Every unintended complication or adventure we encounter along the way, outcomes of unintentional, unwanted, unexpected deviations en route, can most certainly be called an ‘odyssey’, whether the journey is through inner or external geography (because, among humans, inner odysseys are countless). And it would be hard for any mortal to have not found themselves even once in their life – if only in some analogous way – in a condition that defines them as a stranger.

Could it be that sympathy – the vicarious pain which experiencing the epic theatrically may lavish upon us out of pity – can function as a tender caress, a doorway to understanding the suffering of Another? The difficult position of the foreigner, which – as History ardently teaches – any one of us could find ourselves in as we navigate one of its sharp bends...]

The epic taught us to breathe.

Michail Marmarinos

ATHENS EPIDAURUS FESTIVAL 2025
Ancient Theatre of Epidaurus
Friday 11 & Saturday 12 July 2025

PERFORMANCES IN CYPRUS
Amphitheatre Makarios III, School for the Blind
Friday 18 & Saturday 19 July 2025

Kourion Ancient Amphitheatre
Friday 25 & Saturday 26 July 2025

Α co-production of the National Theatre of Northern Greece and Cyprus Theatre Organisation