7 Quests
Municipal Theatre of Piraeus | 2020
The play “7 Quests” is a multifaceted, modular production of either poetic or realistic scripts, which examine the identities of individuals from one end of Greece to the other. Seven striking stories, seven quests. War, migration, disappearance, captivity, isolation, settlement, loneliness. The production finds its common ground in individuals and their quests. Remembrances, searches, questions, testimony.
Seven playwrights of differing styles (Akis Dimou, Roula Georgakopoulou, Stefanos Dandolos, Makis Tsitas, Giannis Tsiros, Thanassis Chimonas, Giorgos Skampardonis) encounter seven directors (Prometheus Aleifer, Thodoris Gkonis, Electra Ellinikioti, Nancy Boukli, Charis Pechlivanidis, Maria Savva, Thanassis Chalkias) and seven actors (Manos Vakousis, Katerina Didaskalou, Leonidas Kakouris, Rinio Kyriazi, Iro Bezou, Alexandros Milonas, Maria Papalambrou).
The Greece of the Middle East, of the Civil War, of the emigration to Germany, of the missing in Cyprus, of the prosperity following the 1990s, of contemporary urban isolation, of migration, are all on stage at the Municipal Theatre of Piraeus with seven distinct texts. Because “Since then, the traces of him have been lost. Whoever knows something is requested to....”
CRITICAL REVIEWS
“I give special distinction to the exceptionally interesting script by Makis Tsitas, which deals with the 1960s and entitled “Not one day.” A remarkable find, a hair-raising monologue, aesthetically impeccable and ideologically disruptive. This multi-talented, oft-translated and widely-awarded writer of prose has a healthy, realistic sense of the dramatic and knows how to use the everyday onstage in the best possible manner. Whatever is poetic is ‘magic’ only at a deeper level, while on the surface a rationality prevails that is nearly Aristotelian.”
Konstantinos Bouras, grafei.wordpress.com, 27/01/20
“In the text by Makis Tsitas, the heroine, Vera, a singer who left for Germany and changed her name, hears one of her songs on the radio and, through a statement from the Red Cross, learns that her relatives in Greece are seeking her. Still, things are never what they appear to be and the surprise at the end raises numerous questions. It is a text with rhythm and humor that aptly incorporates, but without shouting, numerous social and actual events of the era (the end of the 1960s), but also shows how each individual has either closed (or not) the door on the past and what exactly they were seeking from it.”
Olga Sella, popaganda.gr, 07/02/20
“Iro Bezou, bubbly and refreshing, is the great surprise of the play. As a Greek woman singer who has left for Germany, because she felt insulted in her own country, splendidly brings together fear and bitterness with a yearning for life and supreme joy in Makis Tsitas’ clever text.
Marianthi Kounia, parapolitika.gr, 17/02/20