Prometheus

“A roof overhead and a little fire is all humankind ever wanted – and it is captive to both.” Nikos Karathanos’ Prometheus is coming to bring us nothing but a blast of freedom.

“Come in, come in.” Prometheus on the Onassis Stegi Main Stage. There is no Caucasus here. No rock, no chain; nothing to keep Prometheus bound. Everything takes place inside a house. A house-cum-meteorite hanging in space-time, engulfed by the four natural elements. Prometheus (Nikos Karathanos), Power and Hermes (Christos Loulis), Bia and Io (Galini Hatzipaschali), Hephaestus and Oceanus (Giannis Kotsifas) – all live here, like a family, making worlds.

“To live is to devour light and darkness, every minute.” Nikos Karathanos gives us his take on this tragedy by Aeschylus, attempting – in his own words – to “mythologize daily life”: “I’ve always tried to understand how pain inside a room can escape those four walls, travel through the air, birth gods and monsters, and bring us myth.”

This acclaimed artist – a perceptive observer of transcendence through readings of the familiar – directs, and performs as Prometheus. He recognizes each and every one of us in this character. “Prometheus represents you and me and everyone, in that moment where we look upon the reality of life and it looks back at us. There is something so very ancient inside every human being that makes time bend away in shame,” he notes.

Nikos Karathanos is turning his hand to ancient Greek drama for a second time, after tackling Aristophanes’ Birds; it is a source material that moves him because “it seems to be telling me constantly that ‘the opinions I have are my tomb, and justness is my resurrection”.