Why the Athens & Epidaurus Festival might be the opportunity the Europe of festivals is looking for

Theatre in Greece is an act of politics, and therefore everything needs to be taken into consideration. Money is not a tool and words are not concepts, they are actions. And even more so when sometimes it’s all it is left. In that sense, the ministry has now the opportunity to redeem itself and propose a strategy that will enhance the willingness of Greek artists to actively participate on the development of a festival, by acknowledging their social and cultural consequences.






Watch out for the golden lamb

The problem is not on the work of Fabre that, for sure, needs to be showed and discussed. But it does as so do other works and other artists, which is exactly what the Athens & Epidaurus Festival was doing, and it was exactly what made Fabre’s course. It was what made the festival grand and made it internationally appealing. It’s what made its history, now reduced to a footnote hard to write. On the past years, the Athens & Epidaurus festival had the capacity of creating a sense of belonging; the strength to develop links that would allow artists and audience to enlarge their cultural, political and philosophical references; the empowerment of artistic discourses through the confrontation of different aesthetics; the willingness to defend the abolition of supremacist programing, conceived in a monolithic way and being forged as an impediment for debate to happen. What this program proposes is not of such order. It enrages, with reason, it demotivates, with frustration, it gives up, with resentment, it buries, in a perverse and coy way, demolishing a gradual understanding of diversity that, for the past years, both inside and abroad had made the Greek theatre scene one of the most vibrant ones.