Perilipsi of Ergou
Th returns after a long time to her family home in a remote mountain village, deserted and closed up for years. She comes having decided to settle there for a long while, as she has recently separated from her husband. It is dawn when we see her arrive with only a few of her things; the rest will come by lorry in a few days.
But a big surprise awaits her. The house is not empty! It has been occupied by strangers: a family, a young couple with three children. Getting over her initial shock, she insists that the couple leave at once. They refuse, calmly and firmly. The owner realises that these strangers have not simply taken over her house but have put down deep roots in the village. They have formed ties and found protectors. Everyone, even the local policeman, would stand by them, ready to defend them. Their tentacles have spread even deeper, into the innermost bonds and rivalries nurtured for years within her family, into all the guilty secrets the walls of this house kept so well. The new occupants have read letters, seen photographs, talked with the villagers. Th realises, almost in terror, that the strangers know almost everything, about her and about her relatives. She begins to waver and give way.
She makes them an offer: they can stay a little longer, paying with their labour. In other words, she hires them to maintain and renovate the house in exchange for a roof over their heads. They agree.
They begin living together, but before long the roles are reversed. Th gives in more and more to their demands until she ends up, you might say, as their servant. The strangers’ presence is no longer just imposed on her; it becomes indispensable. Now she would do anything to keep them from ever leaving.
The children remain unseen the whole time, shut away in their room at the heart of the house. So do the villagers, who have allied themselves with the squatters and watch everything, hidden outside by the fences. They are invisible, but like Th, we constantly hear their whispers and feel their gaze. Ghosts that give the screw another turn…. Vangelis Chatzigiannidis
VANGELIS CHATZIGIANNIDIS was born in Serres in 1967. He studied at the Athens Law School and the Veakis Drama School. He worked for three years as an actor in productions by Theodoros Terzopoulos, Pepi Oikonomopoulou, Giannis Tsarouchis, Minos Volanakis, Stamatis Fasoulis and the Morfes Theatre Organisation. His short stories have appeared in the newspapers “Ta Nea” and “Eleftherotypia” and the magazines “Frasi”, “Dentro” and “Na Ena Milo”. He made his literary debut in 2001 with the novel “The Four Walls”, followed by “The Guest”, “Disguise”, “Natural Histories” and “Sleep”. His plays include “La Poupée” and “Mud”.
Syntelestes
Paizoun
Th: Katerina Berdologou
Z: Sissy Chatzinikolaou
F: Michalis Kyritsis
Skinothesia
Fotini Papachristopoulou
Music supervision
Christos Damoulakis
Lighting & electrics
Giorgos Fytilis & Klainty
Skinika – Kostoumia
the company
Fotografies
Manty Lykeridou Veleta
Kataskeves
Nikos Argyreas, Petros Papageorgiou
Poster – Programma
Petros Papageorgiou
