And allow me to lift up my eyes to you
every moment of my life
as to a mountain, that protects me.


When they ask me, I tell them
That the sorrow fades

But it does not fade away.

In front of us, the cities
and the noisy rivers fade.

We are on the edge of everything that could happen to us
It is the edge of the world
We are standing in front of a quay
And everything is like a dream
We watch the river flow
Are we trying to see the past?
The future?
The words of that long night, so long…
(so many hours and so many places)
The words of that long night, I cannot remember
Happiness without tomorrow, without the waiting.

And to talk incessantly about you
so as to have the chance to pronounce your name
And to try to forget
These matters that with myself I too much discuss
Too much explain
Because I do not hope to turn again
I am very much looking forward to seeing you again like a whole, completely new kingdom
The others are somewhere here, I imagine.
There are areas in my life that have been forever erased.
So many areas. I look back and see nothing.

You say I am repeating
Something I have said before. I shall say it again,
Shall I say it again?
Oh! (laughing) there is very few
lightness in human beings.
Human beings have weight, haven’t they?
Maybe, sometime, we will live the rebellion against the weight.
But it isn’t for tomorrow (laughs again)
Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind
Cannot bear very much reality.

 

3 a.m.

Where am I?
Where am I when I do not live neither in reality,
nor in my fantasy?
It’s raining.

Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future
We go on.

And the streets are wet.

Where is the summer?

The unimaginable summer?


3 a.m.

The strange silence that falls sometimes in the centre of the cities.

It is as if we are lost.
Music is heard from afar.

There is not happiness in this world (laughing)
There is only serenity and will.
Your words echo, thus, in my mind.
Who knows? Perhaps, after some time,
This moment will seem to me as a moment of happiness.

I woke up this morning and found a note by my bed.

It’s not written by me, it’s not my handwriting.

The note says that I am old or that I am getting old
(I do not remember)

That my life has passed as if someone else has lived it

And that time, that used to be on my side, is now against me.

Dawn points, and another day
Prepares for heat and silence.
Out at sea the dawn wind

Wrinkles and slides. I am here

Or there, or elsewhere.

In my beginning.

I can only say, there we have been:
but I cannot say where.

And I cannot say, how long,
for that is to place it in time.

Although I do not hope to turn again
Although I do not hope
Although I do not hope to turn

10 years after the end of the play, Vanya, Elena and Astrov find themselves in a weird room, on the verge between dream and reality. A room that’s being prepared for a special celebration tonight. Parallel to this room, a second space and time where the 3 protagonists of Chekhov’s play remember / re-live / re-enact fragments of their past life. Farewell scenes, late night confessions and outbursts of emotion, as written in the original play, mixed with texts of I. Bergman, M. Tsvetayeva, T.S. Elliot and texts written by blitz theatre group during the rehearsals.

The story of ‘Vanya’ is a story of anticipation and finally, a story of confinement. Human beings that wish to love and to be loved who are trying to change their lives who, at the end, fail dramatically and yet, decide to go on with their lives, hoping for a better future.

‘Vanya.10 years after’ is a farewell to the past an attempt to narrate the passage of time and a weird ceremony dedicated to the future of humanity.

Direction
blitz theatre group

Dramaturgy
blitz theatre group
Nikos Flessas

Light design
Tasos Paleoroutas

Set design
Efi Birba

Costume design
Vassilia Rosanna

Assistant director
Vassia Attarian

Performers
Aggeliki Papoulia
Christos Passalis
Giorgos Valais

✈

Festival delle Colline Torinesi
Torino, 2016 ✓

Festival Reims Scènes d'Europe
Reims, 2016 ✓

Théâtre Dijon Bourgogne
Dijon, 2015 ✓

Development & Promotion
Judith Martin / Ligne Directe ↗

Production
blitz theatre group
Athens 2014

in co-production with
La Comédie de Reims ↗
Théâtre Dijon-Bourgogne ↗
Theatro Technis ↗

Download catalogue ↗