ONLINE PREMIERE OF TOM IN GREECE (TOM À LA FERME) ON THE ONASSIS DIGITAL CHANNEL

Onassis Stegi steps up once more for this year’s Athens Pride Week (4-12 September 2020) and participates with the digital premiere of the play Tom in Greece (Tom à la ferme, 2011) by Michel Marc Bouchard.

Visit the YouTube Channel of Onassis Stegi from 7 until 13 September 2020 and celebrate diversity. Watch live the online premiere on Monday, September 7th at 21:00 here.

Michel Marc Bouchard notes “Homosexuals learn to lie before they learn to love”. The rising young director, Sarantos Georgios Zervoulakos, draws us into a tragicomedy of unveiled lies, repression, and violence amidst the backdrop of today’s Greece.

How does it feel to lose your work and life partner? How does one’s life change when they spend time with the family of the lost loved one? How can one handle mourning and loss, and keep the secrets hidden in a closed community? And finally, how many secrets can one keep inside in the name of love? The talented, much-discussed director, Sarantos Georgios Zervoulakos, on his first collaboration with Onassis Stegi, brought Michel Marc’s Bouchard’s acclaimed “Tom à la ferme” on the Upper Stage of Onassis Stegi on December 2019, in an adaptation inspired by the realities of contemporary Greece

Zervoulakos, who was declared “Best New Artist” in a survey among theater critics conducted by the “Theater Heute” magazine in 2012, worked with a group of both young and established actors (Renia Louizidou, Antonis Primikyris, Lefteris Polychronis, Eva Maria Sommersberg) who, with the music of Amateurboyz, presented us a psychological thriller, a meditation on mourning as well as a detailed dissection of a stifling society. The rising young director, Sarantos Georgios Zervoulakos, draws us into a tragicomedy of unveiled lies, repression, and violence amidst the backdrop of today’s Greece. An acclaimed theatrical play, which has also been adapted for the screen by the successful young director Xavier Dolan, was presented for the first time in Greece in 2019.

A successful, cosmopolitan gay man, Tom travels to the Greek countryside to attend his lover’s funeral. Shattered by his loss, he meets the deceased’s family for the first time: the mother, who has no idea who Tom is and what he meant to her son, and the brother, whose main concern is to hide the truth at any cost. Despite the “toxic” environment, Tom appears loath to leave, even as relations among the different characters, beset as they are by power games and repressed desires, devolve into pathology. Gradually, the blurring boundaries between violence and lust lead to a tragicomic unveiling of truth, repression, and violence.

"Tom in Greece (Tom à La Ferme)" by Michel Marc Bouchard

Translation: Amalia Kondoyanni

Director: Sarantos Georgios Zervoulakos

Set & Costume Design: Tina Tzoka

Music: Amateurboyz

Lighting Design: Nikos Vlassopoulos

Assistant to The Director: Stella Rapti

Assistant to The Set Designer: Mary Antonopoulou, Athina Koubarouli

Dramaturg: Lisiane Durand

Head of Production: Rena Andreadaki

Cast:

Tom - Antonis Primikyris

Agathe - Renia Louizidou

Francis - Lefteris Polychronis

Sara - Eva Maria Sommersberg

Surtitles Translation: Memi Katsoni

Simultaneous Surtitling: Yannis Papadakis

Concept: Eteria Filon

Produced by: Onassis Stegi Athens

Onassis Stegi supports the LGBTQI+ community though action and initiatives undertaken both in Athens and around the world. In 2015, Stegi came out in support of Athens Pride for the first time. Since then we’ve been #parousa (present in the feminine) each year, happy to see the numbers of people taking part grow and grow. Together, many voices are louder to be heard.