The Murder of Isabella Molnar
Based on the short story by Dimitris Hatzis

Η γλυπτική είναι η τέχνη που αγαπώ

Δ.Χ.

Greek post-war novelist Dimitris Hatzis opens his short story The Murder of Isabella Molnar with this sentence. Seeking to grasp the essence of sculpture, he offers a formulation later within the text as precise as it is singular, defining it as “a rational organisation within an irrational world.”

The necessity of Art, its capacity to jolt the “self-contained” spectator into an irrational and chaotic world where instinct claims its own legitimacy, the fraught bond between artist and creation, and the very enigma of sculpture and its materials – all these were the primary impulses that fuelled the performance. Sculpture is not merely a theme; it is the central presence on stage. The journey of sculptural material – from the pursuit of perfection and the question of what that might ultimately mean, to decay and disintegration – becomes a vivid metaphor for the heroine’s inner passage.

Is there a relationship between the living body and raw matter? In the work, clay is not a stage prop but an almost sentient entity. The sculptures – created by sculptor Ismini Tsofidou – are positioned between the narrator and the figure of Isabella. They seem to breathe and transform, revealing the fragile, often painful relationship between creator, creation, and observer.

The performance is a stage meditation on sculpture as a response to chaos; an exploration of the threshold where Art becomes an existential necessity – and, at times, a dangerous one. Once again, the writer’s words illuminate its gifts without dispelling its mystery: “And then the statue, standing complete at human scale – indeed, at human measure – is a triumph of humanity’s defiance of its own accidental nature.”