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EIGHT CONTEMPORARY PLAYS, WITH ENGLISH SURTITLES

 

To mark its tenth anniversary, Oxford's Greek theatre company Praxis is holding a day-long festival celebrating modern Greek theatre at the Simpkins Lee Theatre, Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford on Saturday 3rd June.

 

The Praxis 8 festival will present eight contemporary plays performed as rehearsed readings with English surtitles, directed by Anastasia Revi.

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Imagine a country shaken by political and economic turmoil. A society in flux, with past definitions failing and human migration creating tensions and tragedies. In this bleak landscape, people are searching for something new: they question their leaders and the social norms, and demand a say in matters that affect their lives and their rights. The voices of the marginalised, the suppressed, and the dispossessed grow louder during their struggle to break from the limitations and prejudices of the past. What was once taboo is out in the open, with people refusing to be defined away.

 

This country for the past decade has been Greece. But this country is also today’s Britain - in fact, this landscape is becoming a global experience.

 

The Praxis 8 festival was conceived to provide a stage for many voices that emerged due to these profound changes, and to provoke reflection on how social norms can render us captives of our own identities. After receiving a massive response to its call to current Greek writers, with some 30 recent plays submitted, 8 plays were selected for the festival; their stories are heart-warming, shocking, tragic, comic, and remind us of our essential truth: our humanity. 

 

The 8 plays are:

 

Beneath the Parthenon by Minas Vintiadis

Flying Asparagus by Natalie Katsou

Those You Didn't Burn  by Danai Liodaki

Ismene by Nefeli Maistrali

Xerxes by Maria Drimi

Snow on my Teeth by Dimitris Foutsias

Antigone, the Foreigners, and the Fire by Penny Milia

Insanity by Danai Papoutsi

 

Each play will be followed by live and on-screen discussions with the authors.

 

Praxis ("Action") is the Oxford University Greek Society Drama Company, established in 2013 with a vision to introduce contemporary Greek plays performed in their original language to an English-speaking audience by providing surtitles, and is proud of being the first ever to do so in Oxford. Since its debut in May 2014, the satirical Internal Affairs by Marios Pontikas, Praxis is now presenting its eighth production following My Beloved Family by Peny Fylaktaki in May, 2022.

 

Anastasia Revi is the Artistic Director of the award-winning Theatre Lab Company (www.theatrelab.co.uk), a London-based international team founded in 1997 that has been invited to and performed at various European venues and international festivals, including in Greece, Prague, Dublin and New York. She recently won the 2016 Greek Theatre Award of Best Director of the Year for her recent production of Shakespeare’s Macbeth at the National Theatre of Northern Greece and received the Women’s Award for Theatre in Athens in April 2016. Anastasia began working with Praxis in December 2014.

 

Praxis 8: A Festival of Modern Greek Theatre is at the Simpkins Lee Theatre, Lady Margaret Hall, Norham Gardens, Oxford, OX2 6QA, 3rd June. Tickets are priced £12 (£6 concessions) and can be purchased through Eventbrite.

 

Contact us for further information, images or interviews.

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