Philoctetes | Elephas Tiliensis

Philoctetes, a performance based on Sophocles’ great play, is presented by Elephas tiliensis, directed by Dimitris Agartzidis and Despina Anastasoglou, on Friday, May 10, at the Television Control Center (KET).

Philoctetes is the first description of the psychotherapeutic process in human history. The Elephas tiliensis are concerned with the story of Philoctetes, the most lonely hero of Sophocles, the most horrible offender, in an almost psychoanalytical performance, bearing the signature of Giorgos Blanas in the translation and Pavlos Pavlidis in the original music. Outlining the healing function of the heroes and the internal mechanisms that lead to their coexistence, the Elephas tiliensis philosopher is a representation of the deep belief in human abilities to resist and turn the dysfunction into health, mental and physical.

Philoctetes is campaigning with the Greeks in Troy with seven ships. However, it never arrives, as it bites a sacred aquatic snake on Chrysa Island. The Greeks – Agamemnon and Menelaos – exile Philoctetes in Lemnos because they can not withstand the screaming of pain and the stench of his wound that disrupts the whole camp. He lives ten years in a cave full of sickness, ill, with only the efficacy of the famous bow that Hercules gave him when he saved his life.

Odysseus and Achilles’ son, Neoptolemus, arrive in Lemnos to convince Philoctetes to follow them back to Troy, because the Trojan seer Helenus said that the Greeks would win the war only with Hercules’ unbeatable arrows. Odysseus urges Neoptolemus to fool Philoctetes and take him with him to Troy. Neoptolemus is confronted with a moral dilemma, but in front of Odysseus’ pressure and promises of glory and honor, he recedes and deceitfully convinces Philoctetes to surrender him. But then he succumbs to the demands of his conscience and returns to Philoctetes the bow and the arrows of Hercules. Finally, after the intervention of Hercules, Philoctetes goes to Troy, kills with his arrows Paris and brings victory to the Greeks.

The show is sponsored by the Ministry of Culture and Sport.

Philoctetes will be presented on the 20th and 21st of April at the Antivaro Festival in Rethymnon and on May 3, 4 and 5 at the Act Theater in Patras.

Translation :
Direction :
Music:
Set, Costumes:
Light designer :
Supertitles:
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Actors:

Giorgos Mplanas
Dimitris Agartzidis, Despina Anastasoglou
Pavlos Pavlidis
Ioanna Plessa
Vassilis Klotsotiras
supertitles.gr
Karol Jarek
Youla Bountali, Irini Bountali, Dimitris Agartzidis

Directors’ Note

Philoctetes is a work for human struggle. “Nature or education, which of the two is the best?”. The dialectics are brought into conflict with violence and deceit. Every person is distinguished by the importance he attributes to one or the other value, namely his morality. Thus he reflects his character and his psychology, representing only his own choice, his own will, his human judgment. In other words, psychology starts with morality. It is ethics that first opens the paths of inwardness and highlights political, values-such as friendship, cooperation, compassion, and justice-and connects them to illness, suffering and healing in both literal and metaphorical terms.

Changes to Philoctetes are happening unconsciously. With Sophocles approaching more – paradoxically – the Freudian psychology of the unconscious, the healer assumes his responsibilities, increases his choices, and gradually heals himself. Philoctetes’ relationship with Neoptolemus grows gradually, helping the two heroes to heal, even if they start on the one hand with a fraudulent purpose. Philoctetes is a work on the difficulty of survival outside of human society, since the memory of others is the proof that we have once existed.

And, at the same time, it is an amazing lesson to educate empathy..