Thessaloniki: Actors turn into Jukeboxes

A group of eight actors from the State Theater of Northern Greece, in preparation for the performance “Jukebox Thessaloniki» held as part of the 4th International Forest Festival, each and every one was not asked to learn a role, but to collect sounds from the Thessaloniki and reproduce them on stage.

In other words, they will become jukeboxes themselves and the viewers will ask for what they want to play from a list they will have at their disposal.

The master of ceremonies, in the performance-game set up by the French group Encyclopédie de la parole under the artistic direction of Elise Simonet, will be the actress Eleni Thymiopoulou.

At the beginning of each performance he will explain the rules of the game and then the audience chooses what to listen to, among 34 titles, such as “Greece no longer carries this burden”, “Three to the right jumps and thirty”, “Always the innocent they pay her”, “She doesn’t want us, m…”, “Instability is expected”, etc.

“People are excited about the idea. Especially towards the end of the show, they can’t wait to claim what they’ve chosen“, reports Elise Simonet to APE-MPE.

The audience actually puts together a different show every day. The French group has held such shows in Paris, Saint Petersburg, Rome, Cagliari, Conakry, Geneva and Ouagadougou.

“In every country the participation of the people is great. It’s a game that everyone wants to play. Even in Rome where we were told the audience is a bit snobbish, in the end they were almost fighting over who would go first“, notes the artistic director.

Great experience for the actors too

In the Thessaloniki performance, the French group Encyclopédie de la parole collaborates for the first time with a state theater and Elise Simonet, at first, was a bit wary of how the actors of such a theater would respond to this kind of work. In the end they told her that it was one of the most powerful experiences they had and she emphasizes that “it is a pleasure to work with them”.

The actors themselves collect the audio files, compositions, melodies, accents, intonations and other linguistic phenomena from the street, work, home, transport, telephone, television and the internet, which under the guidance of the French team , are invited to reproduce on stage.

“Actors realized that anything with a melody can be used and reproduced on stage and this works liberatingly“, says Prodromos Tsinikoris, head of dramaturgy.

The greatness of everyday speech

For Elise Simonet, the interest in this type of theater began when she realized that in some theater performances, several actors do not speak… normally, like in everyday life.

For her, however, the way we speak in everyday life is more important and for this reason the group’s performances do not focus on what is said, but on the way it is said.

She feels particularly lucky to be working with groups of actors from different countries. “I have the opportunity to work deeply with them, since I have to trust them, since I don’t understand their language,” he explains.

The performance “Jukebox Thessaloniki” (duration 45′) will be presented at the Theater of the Society of Macedonian Studies, on July 6, 7, 8 and 12, 13, 2022 at 21:15, as part of the 4th International Forest Festival.

Directed by: Joris Lacoste. Actors: Lila Vlachopoulou, Yiannis Grezios, Dimitris Diakosiavvas, Eleni Thymiopoulou, Maria Karamitri, Giorgos Kolovos, Stefanos Pittas and Evanthia Sofronidou are participating.

RES-EMP

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