"Emata" ("Bloods") by Efthimis Filippou

Following on from the triumphant reception given to “Dogtooth", "Alps" and "The Lobster”, the writer of the scripts that got foreign critics talking about a New Weird Greek Cinema has written his first play, exclusively for the distinguished VASISTAS company and the Onassis Stegi. Argyro Chioti, an outstanding director of the younger generation, known for her vibrant theatricality and ability to conjure up an atmosphere on stage, stages "Emata" ("Bloods") as a punk oratorio about our open wounds.

“Dimitris Kalafatis, aged 40 or so, accidentally rips open his throat in July 1989.” Like a modern-day Philoctetes, Efthimis Filippou's hero can only watch on as his wound fails to heal, festers and leaves its bloody traces on his shirt, his pillow, and the bodies of his wife and children. He writes to his dearest friend about it. "Emata" ("Bloods"), the outstanding Greek scriptwriter's first theatrical work, takes the form of the correspondence between two friends. Mirroring the epistolary masterpieces of Rousseau, Laclo and Goethe, and laced with the bizarre and the humorous, with politician's paranoid speeches and the daydreams of ordinary folk, the work is transformed by Argyro Chiotis' direction into a punk oratorio awash with surrealism and quick-witted comedy. The daring young director with a style all her own combines an abstract aesthetic with conceptual density, a poetic atmosphere and a vibrant theatricality as she delineates anew the concept of the theatrical chorus ancient and contemporary. The themes of community and the relationship between public and private space, collective and individual memory and responsibility run through her productions, which could be described as choreographed tableaux vivants.

For "Emata" ("Bloods"), the stage is turned into a ring within which she orchestrates the ‘moving pictures' of a bizarre production-concert: an oratorio of bodies and emotions, outlandish fantasies and revelatory admissions. The corresponding characters are brought to life and invite us to bear witness to their reality. Which is how the play becomes an extended-play love song to Nineties Greece, to personal and collective trauma and, ultimately, to the bizarre feeling of living in a world haunted by open wounds and vital lies.