Paradise

Look to the future, because that’s where this performance is coming to you from. Presented for the first time in Greece, Austrian playwright Thomas Köck’s award-winning Klimatrilogie (“Climate Trilogy”) – a tragicomic, charged, and outraged requiem – talks bluntly about the loss of planet Earth. In her Paradise, Katerina Giannopoulou imagines a not-so-distant future where the remnants of Western civilization rewrite their own history – on the Onassis Stegi Upper Stage, from October 29 to November 7 – and urge us to laugh at the tragedy of our situation. With a strange greenhouse set center stage, and soundscapes created by Yannis Veslemes (Felizol) making the atmosphere electric, “Paradise” is like an episode of a post-apocalyptic dystopian television series, yet is also a raging political farce that takes us on a journey from the Amazon to Athens, from the 19th century to the 22nd, and from faith in civilization to the admission of crimes committed in its name.

A young German architect roams the paradise that is the Amazon and watches the construction of a European-style opera house in the Brazilian city of Manaus, built using revenues from the rubber boom. A car mechanic devastated by the financial crisis in Greece struggles to make ends meet as the world’s oceans are destroyed by plastic waste. A little before everyone and everything is submerged underwater, history puts in an appearance once more, accompanied by fragmentary recollections of a paradise lost that was first conquered by colonialism, then ripped out, roots and all, by global markets. It is the story of nature’s exploitation.

The work’s surging language – a flood in and of itself – brings relics of rampant capitalist consumption onto the stage in waves, washing away the history, the present, and the future of humankind in a satirical frenzy.

Taking inspiration from the sweeping Climate Trilogy that Thomas Köck – one of the most important playwrights of the younger generation – wrote about the environmental destruction of planet Earth, this up-and-coming director sets out a timeline of events that refute capitalist modes of production.

In his Climate Trilogy (Klimatrilogie, 2017: flooding paradise, starving paradise, and playing paradise), the 35-year-old writer Thomas Köck denounces the climate crisis, colonialism, and the rise of the far right across Europe, adopting the position that neoliberalism is a contemporary manifestation of the 19th-century colonial mindset. Paradise is a new formulation of his trilogy, adapted by Katerina Giannopoulou and her dramaturg Grigoris Liakopoulos to touch upon Greek realities.

How close are we to irreversible environmental damage? And, moreover, how did we arrive at this point? The sun now shines forty percent hotter and floodwaters have covered the entire surface of the Earth, carrying off the few remaining survivors, who float in among the trash, amid their memories and thwarted hopes. A furious mob from the future appears before us to mourn our lost paradise.

Credits

Text: Thomas Köck

Direction: Katerina Giannopoulou

Translation & Dramaturgy: Greg Liakopoulos

Original Music: Yannis Veslemes

Set & Costume Design: Niki Psychogiou

Lighting Design: Christina Thanasoula

Live Camera: Yorgos Kyvernitis

Video: Kostis Charamountanis

Academic Consultants: Dr. Christos Varvantakis, Efthimis Theou

Assistant to the Director: Efi Christodoulopoulou

Set, Costume & Lighting Design Assistant: Marietta Pavlaki

Set Construction: Thomas Marias

Production Management: Serafim Radis, Vasia Attarian

Surtitles Translation: Memi Katsoni

Simultaneous Surtitling: Yannis Papadakis

With: Giorgos Kissandrakis, Gogo Papaioannou, Dimitra Paraskelidou, Michalis Pitidis, Vasilis Safos, Maria Filini

Produced by: Onassis Stegi

Touring is supported by Onassis Stegi’s “Outward Turn” Cultural Export Program.

With English surtitles:

October 29 (Friday), 30 (Saturday) & 31 (Sunday), and November 5 (Friday), 6 (Saturday) & 7 (Sunday)

PARALLEL EVENTS

AFTER-PERFORMANCE TALK | SATURDAY, OCTOBER 30

After-performance talk with the playwright Thomas Köck

In English, with simultaneous interpretation in Greek.

MASTERCLASS WITH THOMAS KÖCK

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 30 | 12:00-14:00 | ONASSIS STEGI | GALAXY STUDIO

Catastrophic dramaturgies for ruined futures (or post sci-fi phantasmagorias in the time of climate change and the rise of the far right). At the first staging of a Thomas Köck’s work in Greece, the award-winning playwright of Paradise, which is being presented on the Onassis Stegi Upper Stage from October 29 to November 11, 2021, offers a masterclass on dramaturgy, on Saturday, October 30, and talks with the production’s director, Katerina Giannopoulou, and dramaturg, Grigoris Liakopoulos, on the possibilities and boundaries of dramatic writing, and the relationship between playwright and director. How can one write a theater play today, in the midst of pandemics, endemics, climate change, apocalyptic environmental scenarios concerning our planet, and the rise of far right? Does the text remain the most important element of a performance, or not? What is the distance between not only the written word and the performative act, but also between stage and reality?

With the support of the Goethe-Institut Athen.

The masterclass will be conducted in English.

To apply for a place, please click here.

A few words on the playwright

Thomas Köck, born in 1986 in Steyr, Austria, was socialized through music. He studied philosophy and literature as well as dramatic writing at the UdK (University of the Arts, Berlin), and collaborated with the theatercombinat in Vienna. Köck was the in-house playwright at the Nationaltheater Mannheim, worked on a documentary on the rebuilding of Beirut, and directed the Mexican-German co-production Algo paso (La ultima obra). For his theater texts, that have been translated in 15 languages, he has received several awards, including the Kleist Förderpreis in 2016 and the Mülheimer Dramatikerpreis in 2018 & 2019. Together with other authors he was also co-founder of the blog nazisundgoldmund.net dealing with the shift to the right across Europe.

The first part of his Klimatrilogie premiered at the Ruhrfestspiele Recklinghausen in Germany and garnered Köck the Kleist Prize for an emerging playwright.

A few words on Katerina Giannopoulou

Katerina Giannopoulou was born in Athens in 1987, and is a graduate of the Athens Conservatoire Drama School. In the summer of 2021, she directed the production In a Year with 13 Moons – based on the Rainer Werner Fassbinder film of the same title. In March 2017, she directed The Ridiculous Darkness by Wolfram Lotz, presented on the Experimental Stage of the National Theater of Greece. The play went on to be presented at the Dimitria Festival in Thessaloniki, and the New Greek Wave Festival in Bremen, Germany. She has also directed the works The Plague by Greg Liakopoulos, presented as part of the National Theater of Greece’s Experimental Stage New Creators’ Platform (March 2016) and at the Athens Biennale; Holy Beat, adapted from Allen Ginsberg’s Howl, at Bios (2016); and Georg Büchner’s Woyzeck, again at Bios (2014-2015).

In 2018, she took part in the International Forum – Theatertreffen in Berlin as a fellow of the Goethe-Institut Athen. In 2019, she worked at the Deutsches SchauSpielHaus Hamburg with the directors Christoph Marthaler and René Pollesch, again as a fellow of the Goethe-Institut Athen.

Production Info

Onassis Stegi

107-109 Syngrou Avenue

October 29 – November 7, 2021

Upper Stage

Performances: Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays | 21:00

Duration: 120 minutes

In accordance with Greek government guidance, and as part of measures combatting the spread of Covid-19, everyone entering the Onassis Stegi venue must present either a vaccination certificate (valid 14 days after final dose) or a recovery certificate (valid for six months after diagnosis).

An ID card or passport must also be presented, for verification purposes. Specially appointed staff will check these certificates by scanning the relevant QR code using the official “CovidFreeGr” app. Read more here.

Here at Onassis Stegi, everyone’s safety is our prime concern.

UPPER STAGE – AUDIENCE ARRIVAL GUIDELINES
To ensure public safety, audience arrivals have been staggered into two 15-minute time slots, starting from 20:30.

Specifically:

Arrival Time Slot A: 20:30-20:45 – Rows Ε-Θ
Arrival Time Slot B: 20:45-21:00 – Rows Ι-Ν

Tickets

Full Price: 15€

Concessions, Stegi Friends & Groups (5-9 persons): 11€

Local Residents: 7 €

People with Disabilities & the Unemployed: 5€

Companions: 10€

For group bookings, please contact: groupsales@onassis.org

The digital ticket/print@home service is available for all tickets purchased online. Access the PDF file using your smart device, save your ticket to your Android or iOS wallet, or print it out and proceed directly to the auditorium.

TICKET HOTLINE

+30 210 900 5800

ONASSIS STEGI FRIENDS HOTLINE

+30 213 017 8200

ONASSIS STEGI TICKET OFFICE (107-109 Syngrou Avenue)

The Onassis Stegi Ticket Office will remain closed until further notice.

VISITOR SAFETY GUIDELINES

Face masks must be worn everywhere inside Onassis Stegi.

Hand sanitizer stations are provided throughout the building.

Visitors must make their way directly to the auditoria and are not allowed to linger in the venue’s public areas (such as the foyer).

To avoid congestion, visitors will be assigned specific arrival time slots. Tickets must be brought printed out, or presented in digital form.

Tickets are strictly for personal use and are non-transferable.

Performances have no intermission.

The ground floor cloakroom and bar (Liquid Bar) will remain closed.

Audience members must sit in the seats indicated on their tickets – no seating changes are allowed.

Please follow the instructions of our security staff and ushers as you enter and exit the auditoria.

Onassis Stegi reserves the right to eject any ticket holder refusing to follow the rules and regulations set out here.

For Main Stage, Upper Stage, and Exhibition Hall (-1) events, use of the elevators is restricted to two persons at a time. Face masks must be worn.

Access to the underground car park is limited to drivers of vehicles. Face masks must be worn.

The Onassis Stegi ticket office will remain closed. Tickets cannot be printed out on site.

Tickets can be purchased on our website (onassis.org) and via our call center.

Visitors must print out their own tickets before arrival, or present them in digital form.

https://www.onassis.org/whats-on/paradise-katerina-giannopoulou