The play

Not a Standard Term is a theatrical monologue, where Yiannis Psycharis’s mother, who died eighteen months after giving birth, narrates her son’s life from a metaphysical space, while watching over him, invisible, at every point of his life. She makes leaps in time, and describes his childhood, her love and the rifts in the family, the struggle he had promoting the demotic form of the Greek language and his creative progress.

Her language combines tenderness, humour, bitterness and philosophical thoughts on memory, language and time. She struggles with her own fear of being forgotten and the longing to be acknowledged as being a mother, even though she only experienced it for such a short amount of time. The play peaks when, following his death, she “welcomes” him into the afterlife, in order to finally be with him again.

Excerpt from the play

“I’ll tell you, however, a cultural foundation stone, a life and death rule. Languages, fortunately, do not die, because they are made of a material that brilliantly combines the tensile strength of steel and the softness of rose petals. They were created from necessity. And all languages, just like you, had a mother who slowly faded away. You can’t kill them, but you can transform them, develop them, make them a fertile public possession. And just like you look like me, every new language reminds us at a very glance, of the old. And so, just as our vision continues to canter forward, when there is a fire, we will continue to call the fire brigade not the fire trucks, if you need you call the police and not the peelers to your house, you continue to call it a water hydrant not a liquefant and we all hope never to end up in hospital, but we don’t call it an infirmatorium”.

Christos Karasavvidis

Christos Karasavvidis was born in Athens in 1988 and graduated from the Arsakeio School of Psychiko. A director, playwright, actor, he graduated summa cum laude from the Drama School of the Karolos Koun Theatr Technis (2014); trained in the Stanislawski System under A. Manolikaki; is a member of the Young Playwrights of the National Theatre and is a senior studying Finance at the University of Piraeus.

He has directed plays at the National Theatre, the Theatre Epi Kolono, at Tempus Verun – En Athinais, at the Theseion Theatre, at theatre 104, at Bios, at theatre Noūs and others. He has taken part in performances of the Theatro Technis, the Athens Festival, the Michalis Kakogiannis Foundation, Alpha Theatre, Bios and others, while he has also served as assistant director to D. Chronopoulos for performances at the Underground of the Theatro Technis. He was written six plays, all of which have been staged.

Since 2017 he has taught acting, directing and creative writing at schools, seminars and workshops. He is the founder and artistic director of the Athens Theatre Tournament at the Noūs Theatre. Since 2024 he has taught acting at the Theatro ton Allagon and rhetoric, directing and creative writing at Tabula Rasa.

Not a Standard Term

Playwright – Director: Christos Karasavvidis