Issue No.
13376
Olia Lazaridou
Angela Brouskou
MAGICAL and enigmatic, Lewis Carroll’s 19th-century classic Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel, Through the Looking-Glass, establish the background to director Angela Brouskou’s latest theatrical offering. Set to Apollon Retsos’ live score, Wonderland is a virtual encounter of the soothing world of fairytales and the frustrations of real life.
Updated to reflect the 21st century, Brouskou’s take on Carroll’s work sees the forest being replaced by the internet’s dark rooms that Alice enters through a giant computer.
A grownup now, Alice, who is played by Olia Lazaridou, steps into the shoes of Carroll’s young heroine and embarks on a journey back to her childhood years only to be disappointed by the pretentiousness of the world of adults.
Taking a break from rehearsals, Lazaridou talked to the Athens News about fairytales for adults, staying true to the child within and seeing light at the end of the tunnel.
In 1996, you featured in Dimitris Papaioannou’s production The Brothers Grimm Fairytales. Your current performance is rooted in Lewis Carroll’s classics. Do you like fairytales?
Olia Lazaridou: I do on the whole. Papaioannou’s work was more of a monologue, whereas Wonderland is a collaborative project. There is a succession of images and I operate as the eye that keeps track of them as different worlds are being unravelled. These worlds are put together by the rest of the actors in the performance.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass are not your typical fairytales, are they?
I believe these are essentially works for adults rather than children. Carroll delves into the world of children but does not address them directly as his readers. It is not coincidental that his stories have inspired the surrealists.
Do you ever share Alice’s feelings that the adult world is absurd and authoritative?
It depends on your perspective. When you look at our world with the pure eyes of children who are not identified with social conventions, it does look absurd. Such an approach, though, requires unselfishness, and this is a characteristic of children and old people alone. In Wonderland, the absurd world in which Alice lands is the internet.
Does the return to childhood function as a refuge of sorts?
It’s one thing being childish and quite another being true to the child within. The former is an indication of immaturity and, I believe, is bad. But to maintain the strings with the child in you is the core of creativity. This is the real source from which one’s creative forces stem.
Which is your own wonderland?
The soul. It is the most mysterious and quiet but also rich and lively element of human nature. This is where all the secrets lie.
In Wonderland, do you follow the director’s vision or do you bring your own insight into your role?
It’s not so much a role as team work. Wonderland is Brouskou’s take on Carroll’s work. My way of partaking in the play is by following her vision. It’s like having a score and me being one of the instruments.
Among your diverse roles, you have performed in the theatre next to Elli Labeti, acted in Nikos Nikolaidis’ film The Rags Are Still Singing and took part in the TV adaptation of Stratis Tsirkas’ novel Hameni Anoixi (Lost Spring). Is it in theatre, cinema or TV that your heart beats faster?
I can answer to this question by talking about my dreams for the future. My heart is set on two goals. I want to do smaller and more personal things that have a strong sense of experimentation about them. And as I grow older I want to focus on projects that are plain and deep at the same time. I believe that this is the field that one has to exercise in his/her mature years. These two goals do not have to contradict one another - They can feed on each other.
At a time that culture has fallen victim to a consumerist mentality, you have managed to maintain your integrity by opting for, so to say, sparse performances of quality. Is there a price for this?
I am grateful that within this chaos I have managed to do my work more or less on my own terms. Had I not had the chance to do so, maybe I wouldn’t have done it at all. Of course all things have their price, but this is no reason to demand extra credit for the choices you make.
Had you not become an actress, what would you like to do?
I would have liked to be a musician. I believe that music is the ultimate art form, even when compared to theatre.
Are you involved with music at all, perhaps as an amateur?
Not really. But I like music a great deal and I believe that an air of musicality permeates all my work for the theatre. In the future, I want to explore more the musical quality of words.
You have said in the past that cinema exists in direct relationship with real life. What does theatre represent?
Theatre is poetry. It talks about the poetic dimension of life, even more so than cinema. I believe that theatre is the place par excellence where we are summoned to dream, reflect poetically and see the hidden side of life.
You have a blog of your own. Don’t you find the internet an impersonal vehicle of communication?
It depends. For me it worked the other way around. Whether I like it or not, I have an identifiable persona. Through my blog I address a few thoughts that reflect my perspective as Olia alone. This way someone can write to me and I can answer back free from the conventions that arise from my work in the theatre.
In our difficult times, do you see light at the end of the tunnel?
Always. This is my nature and even if I don’t see light I conjure it up. I have the need to see light at the end of the tunnel in order to be able to motivate myself. And I always believe that even in the darkest of times, if you want to see light, you will.
- Angela Brouskou’s Wonderland is on at the Pallas Theatre (5 Voukourestiou St, tel 210-321-3100) on February 8, 9, 11 and 15-18. Performance time is 9pm. Tickets at 30 and 35 euros (students 25 euros) are available from the venue and online at www.ellthea.gr. Credit card reservations on 210-810-8181
Director’s notes
A STRONG escapist element underlines director Angela Brouskou’s Wonderland.
“A world of expectations and desires, the concept of Wonderland corresponds to the realm of fantasy as it offers a way out from daily routine,” Brouskou told reporters on January 28.
In the 21st century, the forest that originally served as the set for Alice’s wanderings is the internet. “This is where we search for a word, a piece of information and even friends and relationships,” Brouskou said. “Magical and dangerous at the same time, it is the modern fairytale. You don’t know where it is going to end as we don’t know the face behind the image or the message.”
Criticising the internet as such was not her intention, though. “It is just a platform that did not exist in the past. When we were growing up, our grandmothers read us fairytales. Now there is the internet instead,” Brouskou said.
For her personally, Wonderland was a way of joining anew the magical world of imagination as the only antidote to the daily routine that even artists often succumb to.
“In the game of survival the pressure is often high and even theatre people are forced to make concessions.”
ATHENS NEWS 30/08/2010, page: 28-29
