{"id":730,"date":"2025-08-27T21:45:18","date_gmt":"2025-08-27T18:45:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analogio.pcinfo.work\/play\/post-box-the-ark\/"},"modified":"2025-09-03T10:57:29","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T07:57:29","slug":"post-box-the-ark","status":"publish","type":"play","link":"https:\/\/analogiofestival.org\/en\/play\/post-box-the-ark\/","title":{"rendered":"Post Box: The Ark"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The play<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

The play Post Box: The Ark<\/em> presents what one could term an inverted version of the story of the Noah\u2019s Ark. Instead of being virtuous and just, Noah is shown to be patriarchal, arrogant, abusive and a drunkard. Here, the flood acts as anything but an act of catharsis, as essentially evil also lurks within the ark and the new, moral world is no more than an utopia. <\/p>\n\n

Letters to and from the Ark, written by two women, one of whom, the younger, will be exploited by Noah as a childbearing vessel for his heir in the New World and the other, his lawful wife, will be abandoned by him on a tree, condense the entire path of a woman\u2019s ion, resistance and liberation.<\/p>\n\n

The play ends with the birth of a baby that came from an act of love and not rape and with the hope that the new world created once the waters retreat, will be a world of love and not hatred, of equality and true solidarity and respect between the two genders.<\/p>\n\n

Excerpt from the play<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

I imagine God with a beard even longer than Noah\u2019s, a beard that spreads over the entire earth, from East to West, and covers everything with its soft hair; within it deer and zebras run, weasels and bears; while along its sides waterfalls flow with clear water; God\u2019s eyes shall shine in wrath and when he cries, a tidal wave will spring from within them and drown all the living creatures on earth.I think and I imagine a lot, but I no longer tell these things to Noah: he considers them stupid and tells me off, as he doesn\u2019t like imagination in a woman; \u201cGod didn\u2019t intend her either to imagine or to think too much\u201d, he says, \u201cthat is men\u2019s work, woman was made to bear new life, that is the admirable work she has to carry out on this earth\u201d. Nevertheless, I continue to think in images, but I no longer tell him about them, though they used to amuse him in the beginning, but the last time he looked at me in a very strange way, as if he were wondering, if I\u2019d lost it, and since then I try to speak as little as possible. <\/p>\n\n

Chloe Koutsoumbeli<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Chloe Koutsoumbeli was born in Thessaloniki in 1962, graduated from the Law School at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and worked in banking. To date she has published eleven poetry collections, three novels, two plays and a novella. Her collection <\/a>Those who sit at the same table in another land<\/em> (Gavriilidis Publications, 2016) received the National Award for Poetry in 2017. Her play Orpheus at the bar <\/em>was performed in 2014 at the Agora Theatre in Patras. The one-act play Sacred Vessel<\/em> was played at Metaxourgeio, with actor Cornelia Kyriaki, directed by Maria Kyriaki. <\/p>\n\n

She is a member of the Authors Society of Thessaloniki, the Circle of Poets and the Authors Society.<\/p>\n\n

Her poems and short stories have been translated into many languages and included in anthologies both in Greece and abroad.<\/p>\n\n

Directorial Note<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

An ode to female solidarity.<\/p>\n\n

Not a denunciation, but a new language of reconciliation.<\/p>\n\n

Sigal and Emzara do not save the world in the manner in which the men of the bible envisioned; they save one another from the repression of the patriarchy and the silence which limited femininity within the religious narrative. Their bond is profound, genealogical, metaphysical. <\/p>\n\n

The female body \u2013erotic, traumatized, maternal, sacred- becomes memory and life. The new world is born of true love and not from rape. <\/p>\n\n

From silence to voice.<\/p>\n\n

From the woman who was lost, to the woman who spoke for us all. [Lina Fountoglou, August 2025]<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Post Box: The Ark<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Playwright: Chloe Koutsoumbeli<\/p>\n\n

Director \/ Dramaturge: Lina Fountoglou<\/p>\n\n

Composer: Ioannis Voudouris<\/p>\n\n

Actors:<\/p>\n\n

Lina Fountoglou \u2013 Sigal<\/p>\n\n

Alexandros Houndas \u2013 Japheth (the voice of Emzara\u2019s letters)<\/p>\n\n

Dionysis Stravoravdis – Noah<\/p>\n\n

Post Box: The Ark<\/em>, by Chloe Koutsoumbeli, (Thines Editions), 2025. Cover illustration: Daniela Stamatiadi <\/p>\n\n

The selection of texts from the book that will be presented at the Analogio Festival 2025 were the result of a collaboration between the director and the playwright.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"class_list":["post-730","play","type-play","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analogiofestival.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/play\/730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analogiofestival.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/play"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analogiofestival.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/play"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analogiofestival.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}