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Dionysus Feast. Photo: Cyprus Centre of the International Theatre Institute
The Buzz Productions Theatre was founded in
2003 by actor and director Philippos Philippou
with the aim of combining image, movement,
music and visual elements into innovative per-
formances. The theatre staged a performance of
Medea
based on narration and the use of masks.
Directed by Philippos Philippou, this particular
Medea
was the result of systematic research and
an experimental method which helped establish
the narrative technique in theatre. The sensitivity
and suffering endemic to injured love were care-
fully observed and sharply drawn, progressing
from one stage to the next, finally culminating in
an awful act of vengeance.
Theodoros Terzopoulos, the founder and di-
rector of the ATTIS theatre of Greece, is well-
known to all who love Greek theatre. Terzopou-
los has also staged
Medea
at the Athens Festi-
val, at the Constantinople Cultural Capital of
Europe 2010 and at the Essen Cultural Capital
of Europe 2010. As with all of Terzopoulos’s
productions, the ATTIS
Medea
challenged the
audience and, as always, caused a sensation.
In the words of Terzopoulos’s mentor, Heiner
Müller:
In Terzopoulos’s theatre, myth is not fairytale,
it is condensed experience; the process of re-
hearsal is not the performance of a dramatic
concept, it is an adventure on a journey to the
landscape of memory, a search for the lost
keys of unity between body and speech, the
word as natural entity.
Several of Terzopoulos’s performances have won
recognition at international festivals, including
The Bacchae
and
Medea
after Euripides,
Per-
sians
after
Aeschylus
, and
Oedipus Rex
after
Sophocles. In 2005 he brought
Ajax the Madness
after Sophocles to Poland as part of the 10
th
Theatre
Confrontations in Lublin; he also brought
Ajax the
Madness
to Cyprus in 2008 as part of the Interna-
tional Festival of Ancient Greek Drama.
Antigone
,
produced by the Theatre Lab Com-
pany and directed by Anastasia Revi, travelled
from the UK to Cyprus, where it was met with
enthusiastic praise:
A timely examination of age-old dilemmas.
The sheer energy of the players grabs the audi-
ence from the off, and the pace does not slack-
en. Theatre Lab has succeeded in recapturing
some of the magic of the most ancient art form