OUR Frank Castorf it never caused him tragedy. No as the only reason why his performance at Epidaurusbased “Medea” by Euripides.is expected to become one of the main artistic events of the year in Greece. Castorf, director of the Berlin Volksbein from 1992 to 2015, is one of the most important European directors. Since the 1990s, it has embodied the “German style” and has served groundbreaking theater with materials, highly creative language, and modern high-temperature acting.

In the Greek play by Castorff, Medea is portrayed by five women. “5 is not explained, but it seems that one is not enough.” He sees the theme of Medea from many sides, for example, exile, love, motherhood. His mind reminds me of a Hieronymus Bosch painting.” – says Stefania Gulioti “K”.one of five actresses chosen by the director.

The audition he gave to the Greek actors for the roles in the play (apart from the five ladies, which include Aenea Tsamatis, Nicholas Chanakulas and Nikos Psarras) was more about how the actor moves and speaks, but also about his thoughts. After all, Castorf in his performances relies on improvisation and acting freedom of the actors.

“The criteria for choosing actors was chemistry and the trust we felt. He works very much on instinct, he trusts very much the inspiration of the moment and the interaction that we have as actors. This is impressive, but also scary for us, who have learned to work differently, more organized than before,” notes Ms. Gulioti.

He sees the theme of Medea from many sides, for example, exile, love, motherhood. His mind reminds me of a Hieronymus Bosch painting,” Stefania Gulioti tells K.

“It is very important for him to distinguish how an actor ‘listens’, how he listens to the director and other employees. At the audition, we talked a lot about the play. I told him that I really enjoy dancing on stage, both literally and figuratively. I’m looking for a way for the show to be both dance and theater at the same time”, says Angeliki Papulia. “My feeling from Medea is that she is completely alone, cut off from her homeland. This is a woman who is nowhere, her desolation is very great, ”he emphasizes.

“At the audition, he wanted to see people, not perform parts of the play. Our conversation was a big flurry of topics, observed by Sofia Kokkali in “K”., another one of five. “I remember telling him that the theater for me is the base that I step on, I draw inspiration from lyrics and collaborations, I make them material for my life,” he adds. Castorf was accustomed to composing different texts, regardless of the era, trying to highlight reflections and philosophical contradictions in the substrate of each story. In this performance, in addition to the text of Euripides, he will use texts from Heiner Müller’s three-part play Broken Shore – Material of Medea – Landscape with Argonauts, as well as other texts. “From the rehearsals, the communication code has already begun to be created, we will find out what Castorf asks, how he works, what alertness he wants from the actor,” Maria Naufliot says, the only one of the five women who had previously played the tragic heroine in the play “Medea. Exit” by Yiannis Kontrafouris and in “Euripidia” by Marianna Kalparis (2017). “To my ears, he spoke, among other things, about the work of Dante. He has a lot of humor, he is violent, stormy. He has a way of talking about things that at first seem unrelated, but in the end they find a connection, a channel to Medea,” emphasizes Ms. Naufliotou and adds: “Who is Medea? This is a woman betrayed by her husband. This is the beginning of a story that everyone knows. But it makes no sense to talk about roles. Now, through which references it will be incarnated is up to the director, as is his choice to have five women play him. The vehicle is the text, it is important for Castorf to believe the text.”

“What we are now experiencing in several rehearsals is magic. I thank the universe for being in the series, I have a feeling that what I live, I will no longer live. The trust and freedom he gives actors is a huge thing.” notes Evdokia Rumeliotis, who vividly remembers—and laughs as she describes it—Castorf asked her at the audition what was… the worst experience she had in the theater (however, she didn’t want to reveal her answer). “It’s very cinematic. At the audition, he wanted to see how we react, how we move, how we speak. This is what he wanted to see, the feeling of the actor,” he emphasizes.

The Athens Festival – Epidaurus first introduced Castorf to the Greek public in 2007 with “Nord” (1960), the first part of the German Celine trilogy. He returned on the occasion of the big tribute to Folksbine at Piraeus 260 in 2017 with Dostoevsky’s The Gambler. The return of the director of Medea (July 21-22 in Epidaurus) gives this year’s program an international flair.