In terms of box office performance, it was a successful performance, but only in comparison to the usually low attendance for this year’s show. Epidaurion: total 10,000 viewers who watched “Edan” Sophocles in Argyris Xafi’s production last Friday and Saturday is a number that in previous, less expensive summers, would have been mentioned in one day, especially considering that this was the National Theatre’s production, the second this year. Athens festival.

In terms of recruitment, Argyris Xaphis’ first directorial effort in Epidaurus was met with warm applause on both days (in fact, during the Saturday applause, a banner was raised, as perhaps expected, with the already known reminder “he’s a rapist”), we guess , however, that the show appealed primarily to viewers accustomed to artistic endeavors made up of near-autonomous parts rather than focusing on some kind of broad, unified, and ubiquitous vision.

To clarify: while the director showed – welcome – the courage needed to turn the two main parts of the tragedy of Sophocles, while it was interesting to watch first the dispute between the Achaean generals and Edas’s associates about the fate of his dead body, and then the suicide hero, finally, we got the impression that such a choice gradually increased the dramatic intensity, but reduced important aspects of the text (in the poetic translation of Nikos A. Panagiotopoulos), which captures a historically broad moment: Aias is a brave warrior who endures injustice for the sake of an adaptable Odysseus, but the considerable temporal transition from the broad-backed man to the sublime man (from the man in the Iliad to the man in the Odyssey) seems to have weakened him; however, the fact that the rival ogre, Odysseus, grew a little wiser at the sight of the shameful position of Edes, was shown due to the skill of the actor.

The rearrangement of the two parts of the tragedy increased the dramatic tension, but reduced important aspects of the text.

It was Dimitris Imellos who conveyed his hero’s hard-earned wisdom even in the way he clutched his coat thoughtfully. And he was not the only one who stood out: Evi Saulidu, like Tekmissa, the wife of Aedas, could in an instant close her tenderness and pain – the one that drags the corpse of her husband; Christ Stylian brought out the rage and despair of Teukrus, brother of Edas, Menelaos and Agamemnon (Yannis Dalianis and Nikos Hatsopoulos) were overwhelmed with selfishness and arrogance, and Athena Despina Curtis, fortunately, again turned out to be not all-wise, but cunning, like a street boy.

And the main character? “Wall of the Achaeans”? Stathis Stamulakatos embodied, in our opinion, the uncontrollable but wounded Aedas, and not his “demon”, according to which the hero lived and died. His presence, however, seemed more powerful than that of Choros, who, although coordinated, seemed completely unarmed, or a piece of music (of Cornelios Selamsis) so fluid that it was difficult for anyone to follow.

The snowy sets of Maria Panurgia sometimes worked (for example, when Ayantas dove into the stage of the human military society only to fall on his own sword), while the costumes of Ioanna Tsami did not add much character to the heroes, although maybe it was not necessary. Something that applies to these “Aiads” in general: they add or not, and the most risky and heterogeneous interpretations of the texts leave their mark.