We Are in the Army Now

We met them in April 2021, through the Onassis Channel, and they were reminiscent of Power Ranger superheroes, Pokemon, and the sexy being that is Cardi B. Then, they traveled for two live performances, at Madrid’s Teatros del Canal and Müllheim’s Ringlokschuppen Ruhr, in January and April 2022, respectively, through the ‘Outward Turn’ Onassis Stegi program. The four performers of “We Are in the Army Now” are finally checking in at the Onassis Stegi Upper Stage.

Everything unfolds in a camp atmosphere, filled with snapshots from the lives of borderline millennials, TikTok-style choreographies, and Britney Spears music videos, all set alongside deeply confessional selfies and memes on the controversial relationships between socio-environmental justice and social media platforms. Except that what’s posted here is the collective rage and urgency of an entire generation, coupled with the fierce humor that pervades it.

Might we all in fact be superheroes, ready to do battle? Can Steve Jobs and working class PEOPLE from the Athenian Nikea neighborhood sit side-by-side in the same selfie? Are homophobic Greek fathers and religiously devout Greek mothers just another work in progress? Can ideology be explained through the use of emojis?

In a time that seems to lack doers, where things are fluid and seem incomprehensible, who exactly will our heroes fight? Generation Z take up weapons and welcome us into a new world where emojis and Pokemon coexist with extreme sensitivity and dissident activism, and all inside a theater form as digital as is it incurably physical.