Giannis Skourletis—bijoux de kant
To the Right of the Creek Bed
by Giannis Palavos
Inspired by Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus
Translated by Karen van Dyck
War session
By Aris Alexandris
Inspired by Aristophanes’ Lysistrata
Translated by Karen Emmerich
The Contemporary Ancients Cycle presents two female monologues inspired by Ancient Drama, directed by Giannis Skourletis, and acquaints us with their creators—Greek authors Giannis Palavos and Aris Alexandris. Commissioned by the Festival, they both turn to the well of ancient myths for guidance and succeed in unearthing their contemporary dimensions through a pair of imaginative and thought-provoking plays.
Author of the short-story collections The Joke (State Prize for Short Story 2013) and The Child, Giannis Palavos relies on Oedipus at Colonus to cast a new light on the archetypal father-daughter relationship. Through the monologue of a woman who traces the life of her father—a wandering folklore musician in the Greek countryside—the play paints the portrait of a man persecuted and outcast, much like his mythical counterpart, with his daughter as his sole refuge. Having just released his second book, Tria epi Psychis (2024), Aris Alexandris (winner of the State Prize for a Promising Author 2023 for his novel How Ignatius Karathodoris lost everything), on his part, revisits Lysistrata to offer a hilarious monologue on the decline of sex in the digital age, reframing it as an unprecedented and peculiar war—one fought on the battlefield of the human body.
To the Right of the Creek Bed
In Giannis Palavos’ To the Right of the Creek Bed, a work loosely woven around Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus, the story of two figures, a father and a daughter, unfolds. The father—a folklore musician who, on the strength of his art, untangles the riddles of others yet remains blind to his own—is wandering ousted and helpless, with his daughter as his only anchor. A year after his death, she holds an informal memorial in his honour, piecing together fragments of his personality while casting a bittersweet yet tender look upon their relationship.
War session
Can abstinence from sex bring war to a halt? Aris Alexandris’ Lysistrata is a frustrated psychologist who is fed up with listening to her patients whining about the shortcomings behind their relationships and choices. Convinced that we are in the midst of an unusual war—where the human body is the battlefield—she sets up an online group therapy session to share with the participants her most critical advice: complete sexual abstinence. In an era of sexual overexposure, what place does it truly occupy in the lives of people? A hilarious monologue in which determination collides with doubt and traditional notions of love strike up a conversation with the thorny realities of the digital age.