“The Dance of Lovers”, a play by Thiago Rodrigues, is presented for the first time in our country in Greek with Greek actors, at the Onassis Foundation Building (107-109 Syngrou Ave., Athens).
A couple at night. “I can’t breathe,” she says. “He can’t breathe,” he repeats. They run to the car and rush to the hospital.
The work of the 47-year-old Portuguese director, playwright, producer and director of the Avignon Festival in France from 2022, captivates us from the first sentences. “The Dance of Lovers”, which premieres on Thursday, October 10th, at 9pm, takes us to the heart of the relationship between two people, who face a borderline experience of life and death. And from then on, in the course of common life, a “together forever”, against time and decay.
Rodriguez directs, in artistic collaboration with Argyro Chiotis and translated by Maria Papadima, Nikos Karathano and Marissa Triantafyllidou.
This is his first play, the most autobiographical, which he began writing in 2006 and finished in 2020. In the same year, Rodríguez wrote a new chapter, about which he said: “Rethinking my characters and what they experienced, is like rethinking – examining the trajectory of my theater since I started writing. Will the characters still be in love? Will the young man I was then, who dared to write this play, have the same need to do theater? I don’t know if I’m ready to hear the answer, but I can’t help but ask the question.”
Telling slightly different versions of the same events, “The Dance of Lovers” allows us to explore a moment of crisis, like a race against time, where everything is threatened and where the vital force of love reappears.
The work talks about the vital force of love, the time that passes, the accidents of life, what is written inside a covenant, what separates us or unites us. Thanks to the lyricism, the musicality of the language and a virtuoso and elegant interpretation, Thiago Rodríguez’s creation certainly has the quality of masterpieces.
In November 2023, the play was performed on stage at the Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens in Paris, with Alma Palathios and David Gesselson in the two lead roles. In January 2024, it was presented at the Center Dramatique National de Normandie-Rouen.
The 50-minute show, in Greek without English subtitles, will run until January 19, 2025, from Thursday to Saturday at 9pm and Sunday at 5pm.
