Late Night

This is the winter of our lives

“We decided that the play would be titled ‘Late Night.’ Late at night, we knew not what to do. We had realized that reality is larger than its interpretations. We always had the sense that the world is scattered. We wanted the people’s journey through Europe to be described through their personal narratives – against a backdrop of a shuttered political map, with their ideologies in an absolute dead end, as subjects are constantly torn between their desires and historical necessity; between their need to be loved and modern confusion; between the persistence of memory and the need to forget and be forgotten. We were thinking that our dreams might be extravagant, ridiculous, or impossible, but they are what they are. Late at night, we were living thousands of lives at the same time, but we felt immobilized.

We saw that historical memory is shaped by the people’s personal memories and confusion. We decided that these people would be us. We started talking about bombarded stations, military troops conducting night raids, abandoned airports, dates in the parks of Berlin or Antwerp, people that got lost in the noise of this world. We never understood the things we loved. So we were left all alone. We witnessed the seas rising over the buildings, and the war destroying entire cities. We knew that all these would happen. Late at night, we knew not what to do. We composed a narrative that would never be completed, with the main characters on the border between resigning and resisting, with the people’s personal memories colliding against the chaos of history. We realized that modern life increasingly resembles a daze that we will never manage to understand on time. Time doesn’t exist. History doesn’t exist. Our life span is short. We staged a night over Europe, where the war has started and still continues, where metropolitan cities are destructed and all networks collapse. Late at night, we knew not what to do. We would meet, but no one would promise anything to one another.

We would meet in order to weave a fragmentary narrative, set in a ballroom. We would talk about people who gave up on their ideas, who failed to create anything, who failed to build anything, who failed to complete anything, and thus their world was filled up with apathy. We did believe that all people die with music in their heads; that when everything is distant (people, landscapes, memories), there is still music inside. Late at night, we knew not what to do.”

— blitz theater group

“Blitz” means “thunder” in German. But other than its literal meaning, the name of the Greek theater group alludes to the infamous Blitzkrieg – the “lightning war” –, the military tactic that was based on rapid attack and ambush, invented by the German Wehrmacht General Heinz Wilhelm Guderian (also known as “Der schnelle Heinz” / Fast Heinz), and implemented in the first years of the Second World War. “Blitzkrieg” was a term invented by war correspondents and journalists who wanted to describe the Germans’ “thundering” attack strategy during the Invasion of Poland in September 1939.

Blitz theater group was formed on the grounds of the shared belief that theater is a field where people meet each other and exchange ideas in the most essential way; theater is not a field for virtuosity and ready-made truths. The group was borne out of the need to respond to what society asks from art today and to what theatrical structures stand for in the 21st century. The group operates on the principle that all its members are equal throughout the conception, writing, direction and dramaturgy process, and with the conviction that everything is in doubt and nothing can be taken for granted, neither in theater nor in life. The members of the group can pride themselves on managing to escape the borders of their country within seven years, gaining recognition in Europe.

Following its successful presentation in Athens and Thessaloniki, their four-hour performance “Galaxy” was staged at the famed Schaübuhne in Berlin, in spring 2012 – this time with German actors. The performance, a surrealist commemoration of dead people and obsolete ideas, objects, and moments in history, became part of the theater's main repertoire.

Blitz theater group’s performance “Guns! Guns! Guns!,” themed around the tragicomic narration of violence in the 20th century, was presented in June 2012 in Théâtre de la Ville in Paris, as part of the 3rd “Chantiers d’Europe” Festival and with the support of the Onassis Stegi.

“Don Quixote” is the title of the group’s most recent production. The performance was a free-association reflection on the key themes that emerge in the emblematic novel written by Miguel Cervantes. It was presented in Piraeus 260, as part of the 2012 Athens and Epidaurus Festival.

Aggeliki Papoulia and Christos Passalis co-starred in Yorgos Lanthimos’s “Dogtooth,” one of the films that were nominated for Best International Feature at the 2011 Academy Awards.

Straight after its staging at the Onassis Stegi, “Late Night” will tour around major cities in France, starting from Bordeaux (théâtre de la Manufacture, as part of Nov’Art Festival).

Parellel event

Sunday 4 November

After-performance talk with Blitz theater group.

Credits

Direction
blitz theater group
Dramaturgy
blitz theater group, Nikos Flessas
Light Design
Tasos Paleoroutas
Music Supervision
blitz theater group, Giorgos Konstantinidis
Choreography-Movement
Yannis Nikolaidis
Set Design
Efi Birba
Costume Design
Vasilia Rozana
Make up
Evi Zafiropoulou
Hair Styling
Chronis Tzimos
Assistant to the Director
Kiki Rizou
With
Giorgos Valais, Sofia Kokkali, Aggeliki Papoulia, Christos Passalis, Fidel Talaboukas, Maria Filini
Men’s Costumes Construction
Yannis Farantos
Men’s Shirts Construction
Gerasimos Petratos
Women’s Costumes Construction
Eleni Komninou
Men’s Shoes Construction
Ourania Psevedourou
Women’s Shoes Construction
Stelios Karayannis
We thank
Thalia Ioannidou, Ioanna Portolou, Mavili Collective, Drog_A_Tek / Erasers, Marilena Orfanou, Theodora Christopoulou, Rallou Roumelioti, Marissa Triantafyllidou, Yannis Gaitanidis
Co-production
Onassis Stegi, blitz theater group