The play

In the waiting room at an airport. He meets Her. During the Coronavirus pandemic. He wants Her. The Bee Gees’ song Stayin’ Alive is their common ground. Sort of. And Coronavirus is lurking.

Excerpt from the play

M: D’you often go to Paris?

I: It’s my first time. My sister’s getting married and I’m going for the wedding. What about you?

M: My sister separated and hasn’t remarried since. Well for the past two weeks, that is. Drama!

I: I meant, do you often go to Paris?

M: It’s my fourth time. I have a close friend, I stay with. He’s Greek too, a fuel engineer, he’s lived in Paris for years.

I: Are you a fuel engineer too?

M: Sort of. I’m a barman. What about you?

I: I’m a dental technician. You know, bridges, crowns, caps, dentures.

M: Dentures are great.

Directorial note

Sakis Serefas has written an anecdotal one-act play with adolescent wit and black humour and once again brings his characters face-to-face with an unavoidable culmination.

During the pandemic a woman and a man meet in an airport waiting room and the predicament has already been created.

Will they overcome the limitations of the private universe of their own loneliness? Are they ready to get involved in an exercise of death, which, by definition, love is?

A profound existential drama, a conflict between life and death, creation and loss, which commences from the most primitive parts of the self. [Maria Aiginitou]

Sakis Serefas

Sakis Serefas writes poetry, prose and plays.

His poetry collection Whales was awarded a Lambros Porfyras Award by the Academy of Athens (2022).

His plays: Hands won the first prize for a short-form play at the international competition of the International Analogio Festival for staged readings (2021).

Yum-yum received the first prize for a contemporary Greek play from the Association of Greek Theatre Critics at the Karolos Koun Awards 2007

Melted butter was put forward by the Greek Ministry of Culture and staged at the International Festival of Sarajevo (2012);

Mission to Planet Earth received the Ministry of Culture Award in 2007

The Road Will Take You is included in the list of “120 best contemporary European plays” issued by the European Theatre Convention in 2010.

His book A dinosaur on my balcony received the National Award for a Children’s Knowledge Book (2008).

Road taken, road left behind received the National Award for a Children’s Literary Book (2013).

A hole in the water received the Penelope Maximou Prize for 2012 from Greek IBBY (2012).

Thessaloniki in the first person (text: Sakis Serefas, photographs: Haris Yakoumis archive) received the Milos Prize and was published in French by Kallimages (2005).

He wrote the script for the full length feature film Rouleman (2004).

Stayin’ Alive, Death you moron

Playwright: Sakis Serefas

Director: Maria Aiginitou