Sakis Serefas, She is alone
Panagiota, a plump young woman who works in a small supermarket, is under pressure by everyone around her to get married. She is only 25 but is treated like a pitiable and revolting, unlovable creature, which devastates her morally and physically. In an effort to save herself she constructs another image for herself. But once the mask has fallen, everyone is ready to destroy her, refusing to see her despair. A play that speaks the language of today, based on familiar everyday situations, with a relishing connection to the earlier Mam in terms of symbolisms, deals in a realistic way with a major existential issue, shattering its realism with the intervention of two otherworldly entities: the dead Grandmother, who provides information about her granddaughter’s past and contributes to a more comprehensive image of her and an understanding of her character, and the Troubadour whose songs come mainly as a commentary.
MOTHER (opens her eyes, startled): Easy, child, you scared me! What are you doing there?
PANAGIOTA: I wanted to see if it still works.
MOTHER: What?
PANAGIOTA: Remember how I used to do this to you when I was little?
MOTHER: Which one?
PANAGIOTA: How I stood and stared in you eyes while you slept. I had read that if you stare at a sleeping person’s eyes long enough, they’ll wake up eventually.
MOTHER: And did I wake up?
PANAGIOTA: You did. Every time.
MOTHER: Why?
PANAGIOTA: I just told you: because I stared at your eyes.
MOTHER (pensive): That’s what you think. Do you think it was your eyes that roused me?
PANAGIOTA (puzzled): Who else could be?
MOTHER (pointing her finger to the ceiling): the eyes of Him! Who sees everything! (Looks at her meaningfully.)
Everything, you hear? Everything!
(MOTHER points upwards again, towards GRANDMA, who is startled and makes a grimace of terror, as if fearing she has been discovered.)
PANAGIOTA (with quiet irony): I didn’t know He provides a wake-up service, too… (Pause.) Now tell me, were you having a dream?
MOTHER (hesitant): Well, yes…
PANAGIOTA: What?
MOTHER: Something good.
PANAGIOTA: What?
MOTHER (as if hesitating): Oh, why bother now?
PANAGIOTA (as if uninterested): Fine, if you don’t want to say… MOTHER (hastily): Well, if you want to know, I was seeing you as a bride—okay?
PANAGIOTA: Again?
MOTHER (makes a gesture of throwing rice at
PANAGIOTA): And you interrupted me at the best part, as I was throwing rice at you…
PANAGIOTA (ironically): What a pity…
MOTHER: Yes, a pity…
[…]
(The TROUBADOUR approaches and cups PANAGIOTA’s eyes with his palms. He puts on her a red blouse with the words “TASTE OF UNIVERSE” on the front and puts a price gun in her hand, at the same time singing to her.)
TROUBADOUR:
Everything can happen in dreams. Close your eyes and
they’ll come to find you. Every dream can come true.
Once it finds its place in Time.
(Takes her hand in his and they start sticking price labels on the products.)
Tomatoes two euros, lentils three. So many solitary souls
around. Special offer on rusks! Buy two packs, get one
free! How can she eat all these on her own?
(Darkness.)
Director: Aris Troupakis
Actors: Nikolas Anastasopoulos, Giota Militsi, Elena Passou, Maria Savvidou, Kalliopi Simou, Aris Troupakis, Spyros Tsekouras Discussion moderator: Christina Babou-Pagoureli