The play

The volcano of Cubre Vieja in Las Palmas is starting to rumble.

As the column of white smoke rises from the crater and spreads out over the Canary Islands, five people will meet by chance at an OPAP betting shop in a neighbourhood near the centre of Athens.

All night long they watch the live feed about the volcano activity using the social media of a young student, Marina.

By dawn the plumes of lava erupting bring to the surface wounds, secrets and betrayals of a life spent on a deadline. Their earlier bliss will be covered by volcanic ash.

Excerpt from the play

SOFIA: Between two consecutive actions there is a period of time – nobody can say how long – when it is calm… no activity… maybe a little… almost… as if nothing is happening… they fall into lethargy… they feel sleepy… an irresistible sleepiness… they fall asleep…

GIORGOS: Are you kidding me?

SOFIA: Not at all, that’s what he said. They feel sleepy.

GIORGOS: Sleepy?

SOFIA: …this sleep… no, not sleep…

GIORGOS: I told you, there’s no way.

SOFIA: (motioning him to stop talking) … not exactly… its kind of like a hibernation… they aren’t always in a state where they are active… just like you slow down the beats of the heart… a way to survive in extreme cold…

APOSTOLIS: But who is she talking about?

SOFIA: We can’t make any sense like this.

GIORGOS: She’s talking about the volcano.

APOSTOLIS: But whose is the heart?

SOFIA: I really can’t, you’re making me dizzy.

GIORGOS: Be quiet, so she can hear.

APOSTOLIS: You’re the one interrupting.

GIORGOS: I just asked a question.

APOSTOLIS: So did I.

Sofia turns up the volume and goes to stand before the screen.

SOFIA: … the heat is transferred from the hotter to the colder body until both bodies – or as many bodies as are involved – end up being the same temperature…

Maria Aiginitou

Maria Aiginitou is an actor and director. She made her first appearance as a director in 2015. Focusing on Greek playwriting, she was worked with texts by young Greek playwrights and novelists. She is also involved in adapting literary texts for the stage.

She has staged work by Vangelis Hatziyannidis, Sakis Serefas, Lena Kitsopoulou, Yannis Makridakis, Eleonora Stathopoulou and younger authors.

She has written three stage plays.

Directorial note

Seven people deep in the pursuit for happiness. Seven incomplete narratives in the deserted landscape that follows the eruption of a volcano.

No myth, no locus, no time.

A natural phenomenon of colossal dimensions on the faraway island in the Atlantic will overturn their life as they knew it to that day. Eruptions awaken old ashes.

Under the surface of matters and of internalized guilt, under their farcically candid naiveté, is a link to all that which all the people want deeply, contact with the self, with the other with the group. But it eludes them. [Maria Aiginitou]

Las Palmas

Playwright / Director: Maria Aiginitou
Actors: Tasos Antoniou, Ilias Panagiotakopoulos, Konstantinos Seiradakis, Constance Tsagari, Christina Christofi, Maria Aiginitou.