After the successful presentation of Beckett’s performance “Happy Days” at To magazaki tis t3chnis, the restless artist Sofia Filippidou, who never stops creating and surprising us, takes on the same space with herself and her first full-length theatrical work entitled “Pardon, Mr. Beckett” which was recently published (13 March 25) by George Chronas‘ Odos Panos Publications.

She herself writes in the prologue of her work:

After my first poetry collection FOURTY POEMS by Sofia Filippidou, published by George Chronas’ Odos Panos Publications (May 24), the old desire to write and complete a theatrical work began to flare up.

The form and the questions posed by the Theatre of the Absurd, the desert landscape in Beckett’s Happy Days, the desperation, the notion of nothing and of Godot, who does not come, in (Waiting for Godot) have always stimulated my imagination. So I thought I’d have two guys running away from the city lights (for fear of an extreme movement of “exterminating” specialness) and taking refuge in a burnt forest. All I knew when I conceived the idea was that they weren’t expecting anyone. That was, shall we say, my minor disagreement with the Nobel Prize-winning author. Everything else came slowly and painfully with a lot of reading and a lot of writing (from May 2024 – until February 2025 when I finished).

My heroes, sometimes hidden in the hollow of a tree and sometimes openly: they hear and see revealing secrets of passers-by, live themselves in another dark-subconscious reality, converse with beings of fantasy and dream, join with nature, travel back and forth in time…witness murders, bury corpses…

In this poetic anarchy and to pass the time, they decide to play theatre by deconstructing “Waiting for Godot”. In the improvised performance, Godot appears out of misunderstanding, as a role that breaks the convention of the expected. Beckett’s ghost cannot bear the betrayal, the action climaxes with satirical monologues and songs while the play itself is driven to a theatrical dead end, which is resolved, offering a stolen classic finale, by a mechanical vampire, a distant descendant of a great mythical theatrical actress.

About the play

The performance of the play “Pardon,Mr. Beckett” that comes at To magazaki tis t3chnis after the three-month seminars on the Theatre of the Absurd and especially on Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot” (October – December ’24) – is a comic-tragic parody on the footsteps left by the great author.

Sophia Filippidou, who since 2010 has been trying her hand away from the big theatres of the centre with unplayed theatrical and literary works that she selects, translates, adapts and directs (in search of a freer expression), uses here the materials of poetry, satire, play and dream, and is staging with the “t3χνη” company’s group of actors her brand new play in which the twists, surprises and outrageous existential confessions of the heroes flirt with surrealism and the theatre of the absurd: A theatrical plunge into the dark unfathomable space of the subconscious, a journey through the labyrinth of life and self-knowledge, a courageous emergence into the colourful world of art and theatre.

Cast and Crew: 

Directed by/ Costumes by / Artistic Direction by: Sofia Filippidou

Music: Michael-Efraim Tsoumpos, Savvas Parianos

Set Design/ Artwork: Kostas Fotopoulos

Assistant Director / Lighting Design/ Photos: Panagiotis Spyrou

Costume Design assistant: Nina Fotiadou

Make-up and Hairstyling: Stefania Anesti

Production Manager: Apostolis Kepesidis

PR: Marianna Papaki, Nontas Douzinas

Legal Assistant: Mary Fragiadaki

Production company «Τ3χνη» 

The Players:

Spyros Douros, Marios Kalogerakis, Panagiotis Kaloudis, Vera Kanellopoulou, Apostolis Kepesidis, Konstantina Lampropoulou, Lampros Prentzas, Asimeni Tounta, Irini Tsoli, Eftichia Frantzeskaki, Nina Fotiadou. 

Info:

Venue: «Magazaki tis t3chnis», Ν. Νοταρά 60, Athens

Date: Opening Night: Friday 2 May at 21.00. Shows: Friday, Saturday, Sunday , at 21.00

Duration: 90’ 

Entrance: free with voluntary contribution

Due to the limited number of seats, it is necessary to book your seats at [email protected]