Reviews | “Birds”

“The ’Birds’ by Nikos Karathanos and his brilliant ensemble presents us with a night of victories at every level. Our victory is the two-and-a-quarter-hour journey to a fairytale, ethereal oasis, a tropical island utopia, the Cloud-cuckoo-land conjured for and shared with us by Karathanos’s team.”
Propaganda.gr, 22 August 2016

“Frankly, if these are not new worlds of light and freedom, then where might one find them? Nikos Karathanos seems to have found a new homeland in Aristophanes.”
tospirto.net, 1 September 2016

“Karathanos’s vision, inspired by Aristophanes’s the ‘Birds’ (a fact that must be clearly acknowledged) has made history for both artistic and ideοlogical reasons. Its unbridled energy, its poetry, the uncompromising quality of its utopic vision, whispering as it does the sudden bugle call of uplift, bears us aloft as if in a bright helium balloon, so that we may glimpse from on high how fatefully and idly we’ve been falling all this while.”
Kathimerini, 2 September 2016

“This new Aristophanes is free, versatile, daring and – I believe – has contemporary notions of citizenship in his crosshairs. This is an Aristophanes cut to our measure – the Aristophanes we deserve. Part of an Aristophanic theatrical comeback, the play provides a vision for what we need, now and henceforth, on our stages.”
Efimerida ton Syntatkton (Newspaper of Editors), 22 September 2016

“Aristophanes’ simple story about man’s desire to fly, to migrate to new worlds, is enduringly witty and perverse. Karathanos’ production gave poetic urgency to the play’s theme of fluidity among the categories of man, animal, and god, embracing our inherent need to dream and offering hope for decadence.”
Artforum, December 2016

“Dynamic [Karathanos’s] ‘Birds’ undeniably is, and Dionysiac in a way New Yorkers have seldom seen since the heyday of the boundary-busting Living Theater in the 1960s … ‘The Birds’ offers sights and sounds you won’t catch anywhere else in the city… It is the music of earthly existence, with all its mysterious, tantalizing promises, just waiting to be fulfilled — and thwarted.”
The New York Times, 6 May 2018

“A trippy, shameless delight, a sweaty, celebratory party with a satirical wink at our corrupted human pursuit of happiness inside the merriment. I left feeling genuinely lightheaded, which seems just about right for a visit to Cloud-cuckoo-land”
Vulture, 7 May 2018

“Aristophanes’ the ‘Birds’ by Greek director Nikos Karathanos carried the New York audiences to a Cloud-cuckoo-land of their own, reminding us all that theatre is a path to utopia”
Athens News Agency, 8 May 2018

“The ‘Birds’ breaks down walls in New York in the way it manages to convey the meaning of utopia, democracy, and power to New Yorkers”
Elculture.gr, 8 May 2018

“Nikos Karathanos’ wild revival of the ‘Birds,’ Aristophanes’ ancient satire, feels as fresh, as topical, and as timely as if it were written today”
Theater Pizzazz, 9 May 2018

“Sold out shows, New Yorkers giving standing ovations. The ‘Birds’ is the cultural talk of the town in the city that never sleeps.”
Protagon.gr, 10 May 2018

“It’s a story as old as humanity, across every culture: human’s pursuit of a higher level of existence. Karathanos’ version is…so specifically Greek that it becomes universal.”
Exeunt NYC, 13 May 2018