Monument is ancient, not the art

Stage director Katerina Evangelatou is midway through her second term as artistic director of the Athens-Epidaurus Festival, the country’s biggest cultural event. She assumed the post in extremely troubled times in 2019, having to contend with the Covid pandemic, and is now sailing in much calmer waters, with experience and confidence. And in 2025, the 40-something artist will look forward to putting together a special program for the event’s 70th anniversary.

“I’ve always had a very personal relationship with the festival. It’s a lasting love affair that I have experienced from many different angles: as a festivalgoer, then as an actor on stage and then as a director backstage. All that has also increased the sense of responsibility I feel toward it,” Evangelatou tells Kathimerini just a few days after the program for this year’s event was made public.

We met Evangelatou at the renovated industrial complex at 260 Pireos Street, which is just one of the venues where the festival unfolds every year. After our interview, she left for Mount Parnassos to attend the Delphi Economic Forum, where she was on a panel discussing how business can benefit culture and vice versa.

This year’s Athens-Epidaurus Festival brings together roughly 2,500 artists in 93 productions. It features international partnerships, world premieres, discussions and a special tribute to the 50th anniversary of the restoration of democracy in Greece since the fall of the 1967-1973 military dictatorship, a period known as the Metapolitefsi.

It is too soon to assess her contribution to the annual event, she says, adding that as a milestone, 2025 will be a good opportunity to take stock. “We have set certain goals and next year we’ll know which ones have been attained,” Evangelatou says.

What was the first order of business for you?

To expand the festival’s international outreach, which was very strong in the past but had gone through a recession. It is our opinion that the festival’s mission, first and foremost, is to bring and create international spectacles. We are trying to accomplish this via co-productions, which have been more than ever before during my tenure. We don’t wait to see what others will be doing, but create the conditions so that new work is created for us. This year’s co-productions include new pieces by [Polish director Krzysztof] Warlikowski, by [British performance collective] Forced Entertainment, by our young and international choreographer Katerina Andreou, and by Hungarian director Kornel Mundruczo.

We have also launched an initiative, Grape, which represents the first comprehensive platform for exporting Greek productions abroad. Last year we had around 50 heads of important organizations over to see the program and the performances it comprised are already traveling. It’s an innovative initiative, which we are continuing this year with some excellent pieces.

Your interest in ancient drama and modern approaches to it, is evident in this year’s program.

This is another axis that constitutes a pillar of evolution for us at the festival. I am very concerned about the relationship with the legacy of ancient drama, with breaking out of the constraints of the past in terms of playwriting, directing and performance. For the past five years, we have been striving – regardless of the outcome – for our effort to unfold at both ancient theaters at Epidaurus, with bold commissions based on ancient texts. The same applies to the interdisciplinary residency program Parodos.

I would like a fresh perspective on the ancient Greek canon of theater through entirely modern practices to be one of the festival’s future legacies. We’re not opting for the easy path. We like jumping without a safety net. We know that we will stir controversy, but I feel that this is what I am supposed to do.

‘I would like a fresh perspective on the ancient Greek canon of theater through entirely modern practices to be one of the festival’s future legacies’

Does that mean you won’t allow negative comments about what is “appropriate” for the Ancient Theater of Epidaurus to affect you?

There’s some confusion: The monument is ancient, but the art it hosts needs to be contemporary. Such reactions, in my opinion, just go to show how little the general public knows about what is happening in the performing arts today. Theater has always been a polemic art, one that struck sensitive chords and sparked controversy because it has always been about society. A festival such as this must take risks, it must show the audience new ways forward in how we read these texts. And all the more so when there’s a stage director at the helm. I should also note that some of the approaches that are regarded as too extreme here are not viewed that way by the contemporary art scene at all.

So you want to present a different kind of theater to what most people are familiar with?

We have interesting performances for everyone who is positively inclined, and this is, in my opinion, the purpose of this festival. But there is also a part of the audience that gets bored with more conventional stagings. They protest, saying that they expect more from this institution compared to what they can see on the country’s theater stages the rest of the year. I can’t overlook them; and they are, after all, the majority.

But, all one really has to do is look at the program, read the description of the performances and carefully pick what one is interested in. There’s a gamut of directors, choreographers, performers, writers and musical genres at all the different locations, from the Herod Atticus Theater to the Little Theater of Epidaurus and from the Old Parliament to the Sotiria Hospital.

If you had to pick one standout show from this year’s program, which would it be?

I really can’t do that but what I can say is don’t miss “Medea” by Simon Stone, the director and writer we are so proud to present in Greece for the first time. Stone is one of the top theater and opera directors in the world right now. He is bringing a new take on “Medea,” which is based on Euripides’ play but incorporated in an entirely modern American setting. The production has been a triumph everywhere it’s been; it’s incredibly beautiful and the performances are spellbinding.

This year’s program features some very powerful artists who are certain to generate a lot of conversation.

Is art’s job to galvanize us or offer comfort?

I think are gives each person what they need – and that is what is so marvelous about it.

The 2024 Athens-Epidaurus Festival starts on Saturday, June 1, at the Herod Atticus Theater with “Tosca.” To find out more about the program and start booking seats, visit aefestival.gr.