Date: December 20, 2024 - January 23, 2025
Location: Greece
Accessibility
The performances on December 20th and 21st and January 2nd and 3rd will be held according to universal accessibility standards in collaboration with the cultural organization liminal. In particular:
- interpretation in Greek sign language
- Greek surtitles for deaf and hard of hearing people
- tactile tours of the stage and audio descriptions for people with visual impairment
Accessibility services are provided with the support of the Europe Beyond Access network, co-funded by the “Creative Europe” program of the European Union.
About the show
What makes you breathe? What deprives you of air? What do you believe in? Where do you swear by? “Oxygen” by Ivan Vyrypaev, a theatrical manifesto for the 00s, is presented as an antidote to the “psychopolitical suffocation” of Generation Z. A troupe of 25 individuals, all members of this generation, participating in a spiritual rave experience.
“I write for a generation of educated young people who do not go to the theater that often,” the leading spokesman of the New Russian Drama, Ivan Vyrypaev, stated in 2003, now ostracized by the Russian regime and a naturalized Polish citizen. A theatrical manifesto of the 00s generation, “Oxygen” was written as a prose narrated by two characters—a girl and a boy bearing the same name—accompanied by a live dj-set to allow its staging in theatrical venues and clubs equally. Structured in ten chapters, like a transcription of the Ten Commandments and a novel New Testament, it launched from a reversed “Thou shalt not kill” to culminate into a biblical Revelation, all the while permeated by the agonizing question, “What is oxygen to you?”
Twenty years later, the popular Greek director George Koutlis transcribes the work into today in the form of a Generation Z reflection, transforming the stage into a rave party with dj’s Reign of Time on the decks and a young troupe that, like a post-dramatic chorus, seeks through the lens of blasphemous poetics the antidote to the psychopolitical suffocation of our times.
Info
December 20, 2024
December 21, 2024
January 2, 2025
January 3, 2025
h20:30 (Sunday h14)
Onassis Stegi
Athens, Greece
Info and tickets
George Koutlis
He was born in Athens in 1989 and graduated from the acting department of Athens Conservatoire Drama School and the School of Law of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. He studied stage directing at the Russian University of Theater Arts GITIS (with Evgeny Kamenkovich and Dmitry Krymov) and holds a master’s degree with distinction in stage directing from the same university (2019). He speaks English, Russian, and French.
He teaches acting at the Athens Conservatoire Drama School and stage directing at the National Theater of Greece Drama School. Between 2022 and 2023, he was the artistic director of the “Katina Paxinou” Experimental Stage of Young Creators of the National Theater of Greece. George Koutlis is an Onassis AiR Fellow for 2023/24 through the Dramaturgy Fellowship.
Credits
Direction, Translation & Adaptation: George Koutlis
Adaptation & Dramaturgy: Vasilis Magouliotis
Choreography: Alexandros Stavropoulos
Movement: Alkistis Polychroni
Music Composition and Sound Design: Jeph Vanger
Additional Music & djs on stage: Reign of Time
Set Design: Constantine Skourletis
Video Design: Uncharted Limbo Collective
Costumes Design: Eva Goulakou & Dimos Klimenof
Lighting Design: Eliza Alexandropoulou
Sound Engineering: Brian Coon
Hair Design: Konstantinos Vasileiou
Make-up Design: Theo Zografaki
Set Construction: Giannis Nitsos―Art Wood Creations
Stage Scaffolding Construction: Aristidis Papoutsakis―Concert Copa Services
Performers (alphabetically): Gavriela Antonopoulou, Electra Barouta, Ioannis Bastas, Nikolas Chatzivasiliadis, Chara Giota, Nikos Gonidis, Marios Hadjiantoni, Eleftheria Iliopoulou, Panos Kladis, Despina Lagoudaki, Marianna Mathia, Alexandros Nouskas Varelas, Evini Pantelaki, Kostas Phoenix, Antonia Pitoulidou, Gal A. Robissa, Katerina Samara, Natalia Swift, Thodoris Theodorakopoulos, Giannis Tomazos, Anastasia Valsamaki, Noemi Vasileiadou, Jason Vrochidis
Coordination of accessible performances for the Onassis Stegi: Haris Giakoumakis, Vera Petmeza
Interpretation in Greek Sign Language: Androniki Xanthopoulou, Antonis Christoforou
Surtitles for d/Deaf and hard-of-hearing people: Grigoris Stathopoulos
Audio Description: Alexandra Georgovasili, Maria Thrasyvoulidi
Narration and Tactile Tour: Maria Thrasyvoulidi
Quality Control: Yannis Vitsos, Eva Gritzali
Universal Accessibility Services Coordination: liminal
Production Coordinator: Nikos Charalambidis
Executive Production & Production Management. POLYPLANITY Productions/ Yolanda Markopoulou & Vicky Strataki
Commissioned and produced by: Onassis Stegi