“It’s not just two, there are a lot of misanthropes in this city,” director Yiannis Kakleas says with humor, punning on the fact that served as an occasion for our discussion: in the coming days, two theatrical “Misanthropes” – the famous comedy of Moliere – are staged in Athens. A performance directed by Giannis Kakleas will be presented at the Emporikon Theater on November 19, and the same performance directed by Maria Magnanari will begin at Tision on the 23rd.

“My obsession in recent years has been with the world of classical authors,” comments Mr. Kakleas, “because they have a unique way of penetrating reality and revealing every aspect of the human soul that transcends their time.” But this year, for the first time in his 40-year directing career, he is working on the work of Molière. What led him to “Mis-Man”?

“Until now, I thought, perhaps because of measured speech, that Molière was a mannerist,” he replies. “I was wrong. In pampering myself, I discovered a playwright-writer with amazing knowledge of his craft, but also a man with life experience, who, in addition to powdered wigs, also knew the “dirt” of his time.

Thus, Kakleas’ Misanthropos is a satire directed against those who think they know everything. A comedy that criticizes exaggeration, narcissism, self-promotion mania and which through love succeeds in stripping all the characters of their acting confidence. The performance maintains a balance of drama and comedy, “it is a funny, romantic and very hard work,” emphasizes the director, who also performed a measured speech in prose.

“I discovered a playwright who is well versed in our work,” says Yannis Kakleas.

While the rehearsals are almost over, he tells us about a very worthy group of participants and about the joy of having his Alceste, the protagonist, from the very beginning in the person of Odysseus Papaspiliopulos. To preserve the title of a heretic director, which, according to him, has been following him for years, a theatrical persona has been added – a commentator who poetically and satirically intervenes in the action with modern texts.

Unlike Yannis Kaleas’ late “meeting” with Molière, her relationship Maria Maganari with the great French playwright, and especially with The Misanthrope, it started from the years of the theater school of Veakis, where he studied. It was a deep love that began at the Cycladic Street Theater in 1996. In the historical play staged and performed by Lefteris Voyatsis, the exact translation was made by Chrysa Prokopakis. The same excellent translation is now being used by the director.

“Modern viewers may find it difficult to connect with measured speech,” says Ms. Maganari, “but if you take care of the word and rhythm so that the text communicates smoothly with the audience, then the verse becomes an advantage.” and sets the tone for the show’s personality from the start.” The action was moved from Paris 1666 to Athens 1990, creating a “loose historical context” that she says expresses a limbic era like the one that Molière satirised. “This metaphor is not entirely arbitrary,” he explains. “The 90s for Greece were a period of political, social, aesthetic and moral transformations. Modernization required the replacement of old values ​​with new ones, and the advent of money brought a taste of collectivism to all aspects of life. What was our reaction to these changes? Was what we experienced comedy or drama?

This question is also asked specifically for this work, a comedy with great existential depth, multifaceted characters and interesting, very modern contradictions. Molière wrote that “to be funny in some things and serious in others is not at all unnatural.” Alceste is played by Kostas Koutsolelos, and Maria Maganari, in addition to directing, takes on the role of brainy Arsinoe.