The fragments of two lost plays by the ancient Greek playwright Euripides, found in Egypt, have been remade into a unique play, Fragments: Euripides, which combines theater and archaeology into a one-of-a-kind performance. The play will be presented in ancient theaters across Greece.
For the second consecutive year, the National Theater of Greece, under the supervision of the Ministry of Culture and in collaboration with the Diazoma Association, is presenting the project “Introduction to the Ancient Theaters of Greece.”
This is an innovative project whose objective is to showcase a tour of plays in the country’s surviving ancient theaters. This year, the production Fragments: Euripides is based on the fragments of two lost Euripides plays discovered in an excavation in Philadelphia, Egypt, in 2022.
Last year, classicists deciphered the recently discovered papyrus scrolls and found they contained excerpts from the lost plays Polyides and Ino by Euripides. On the occasion of this important discovery, the performance Fragments: Euripides delves into the partially preserved work of the Athenian tragedian, presenting a narrative and musical composition to the orchestra of ancient theaters in Attica and the Aegean islands at the intersection of theater and archaeology.
The play is directed by Efthimis Theou, who plays and leads a troupe of distinguished Greek stage actors: Giorgos Kritharas, Elektra Nikolouzou, Katerina Papandreou, and Giorgos Syrmas.
Polyides and Ino
An excavation is set up on stage, but the findings are not fragments of painted clay pottery or parts of marble statues. Instead, they are lyrics of a chorus, words of ancient actors, all fragmented like the scrolls on the discovered papyrus.
The theater/archaeology performance Fragments: Euripides is a poetic approach to this fragmentary but highly theatrical and lyrical material. His intensely musical and narrative negotiation conveys intact fragments of the lost works, the often adventurous story of their discovery, and the feeling one gets from the echo of voices of all who have ceased to speak for millennia—the intensity of trying to “see” and describe a world gone by through its worn-out remains.
The five actors on stage are performers/archaeologists, holding brushes, sieves, hoes, chisels, and shovels, digging under the sun, following the ritualistic process of an archaeological excavation that unfolds over an entire day. Snapshots of ancient performances emerge from their trenches, detailing the lives of the theaters where the Euripides plays will be performed.
The performances will take place on the evenings of July, August, and September in the ancient theaters of Milos, Eretria, Thasos, Mytilene, Lemnos, Karthaia (Kea), Trachona (Alimos), Zea (Piraeus), as well as on Agios Efstratios. Admission is free, but reservations are required.
The dates and times of the play are:
July 11th: 7:30 pm Ancient Theater of Milos
July 18th: 7:30 pm Theater of Eretria
July 26th: 7:30 pm Ancient Theater of Thassos
July 30th: 7:30 pm Theater of Mytilene
August 1st: 7:30 pm Ancient Theater of Hephaestia – Lemnos
August 8th: 7:30 pm Marasleio School Amphitheater, Agios Efstratios
August 27th: 5:30 pm Ancient Theater of Karthaia, Kea
September 3rd: 7 pm Ancient Theater of Trachones, Alimos
September 6th: 7 pm Ancient Theater of Zea
