The Birds
by Aristophanes

Where would you like to live?
What is it that you want?
What do you want?

A team of artists bids farewell to fear, bursting with love at the words of a poet who is ‘not ashamed of anything’

The Onassis Cultural Centre of the Onassis Foundation goes to Epidaurus for the first time with the most comic birds of Aristophanes, namely The Birds (414 BC), in the context of the Athens and Epidaurus Festival. The Birds essentially talks about man’s need to fly, to create a new world, to come into contact with his innermost desire. Following his breathtaking Golfo, Nikos Karathanos returns to the Ancient Theatre of Epidaurus with a remarkable group of actors and a production/feast of the senses, rooted in the unsurpassable poetic power of this remarkable comedy.

The work tells the story of two people, Pisthetaerus and Euelpides, who leave their city, Athens, in search of a new one, ‘soft and plump like a feather mattress, or like the belly of a baby’. They find it in the country of the birds, which they call ‘Cloudckuckooland’. The birds welcome the two strangers. They give them wings. Together, they work with enthusiasm to build a wall up in the sky to stop the communication between gods and humans. The happiness of this new state is based in this newfound idea. Imagination and reality, human, gods, and animals come together in a world that has the seriousness of a game, the fluidity of a dream, and the sweet melancholy of life. This is a production that aims at a clear approach of Aristophanes, wishing for the poetry of the leading comedian of Attica to be heard and loved anew. A theatre group ‘that wants to fly, while falling’, seeking, daring, and confronting ‘an elusive happiness, so big that cannot be uttered or thought of’.

For The Birds, Aristophanes received the second prize in the Dionysia Festival in 414 BC. The play is considered by leading scholars to be the best of his surviving works. It was written during a time when peace was strongly undermined (Nikiios Peace Treaty); the operation in Sicily was ongoing and the political situation in Athens was not managed by suitable politicians.

The Birds are the first production of the Onassis Cultural Centre (OCC) of the Onassis Foundation at the Ancient Theatre of Epidaurus in the context of the Athens and Epidaurus Festival 2016. This is another collaboration between OCC and Nikos Karathanos and his wonderful team, following The Cherry Orchard, a production that not only surprised audiences but also sparked a rare discussion and an invaluable debate on stage readings of Chekhov’s oeuvre.

The production of The Birds by Karolos Koun for the Art Theatre (Theatro Technis) is a point of reference in the history of contemporary Greek stage works; featuring a translation by Vasilis Rotas, sets and costumes were designed by Greek painter Yannis Tsarouchis, music was composed by Manos Hadjidakis, and choreography by Rallou Manou. The production received its premiere in 1959. The rest of the performances were cancelled by order of Konstantinos Tsatsos, Minister to the Presidency of the Government. It was staged again in 1960 in its final form. This was the first Art Theatre production to be presented abroad, receiving the first prize in the Festival of the Nations in Paris (1962).

‘More than any other kind of poetic language, Aristophanes brings us closer to the human condition. If through tragedy we become familiar with the quality and the content of ideas of classical Greece, through comedy we gain insight on the kind of person who conceived these, bringing them to life.’ Nikos Hourmouziadis

‘The Birds are perhaps the first work of utopian literature.’ Stathis Dromazos

‘Comedy is often the writer’s sob, when he knows that he cannot or is not allowed to write a tragedy.’ Pavlos Matesis

We inform you that tickets for both days are now sold out. 

With English surtitles