Six women. A stage. An empty auditorium. Just a few hours before the curtain opens for “Villa (the road not taken)” written by Guillermo Calderón and directed by Lito Triantafyllidou. A play about collective consciousness, female nature, trauma, human history and memory. Introductions are made quickly, while impatience grows gradually, as the discussion unfolds more and more. Three wonderful women, three marvellous actresses, Natasa Exintaveloni, Lila Baklesi and Angeliki Paspaliari, help us dive deeper into the play, by sharing their thoughts, providing philosophical extensions, and offering food for thought to a greater extent.
1.What is theatre to you?
Natasa: To me, art has a huge range and that’s what’s so charming and beautiful about it, so I think about it in a more liberating sense. I think that our need to do theatre is consistent with our need to tell stories.
Lila: I agree. I will add to this that what’s interesting is the fact that in theatre something happens and as soon as the play finishes… It’s gone. It’s over. It will never happen again. And this, in combination with the audience, can create something completely different and unique each time.
Angeliki: Theatre to me is a way of existing somehow, so you can endure life. I imagine that it’s the same for the people to whom it’s addressed. The people that come to see a show are in a situation where something totally fake is happening before their eyes, they are aware of it, we are aware of it, but both sides, showing goodwill, decide that we won’t believe it’s fake, we will believe it’s real. It’s a kind of dialogue -it’s not a coincidence that theatre was born through democracy- so this open dialogue that’s happening with the audience is what I love every time I am on stage.
2.What was your reaction when you read the play for the first time?
L: I called and said, “When do we start?” (laughs). No, it was very important for me to know who was going to be with me in this play and I felt very happy that it got to be with the girls.
N: However, I think that, because we read it in English at first, without its translation, we came in contact with the text gradually and it took shape gradually. At the same time, we did our own research. The material was there, and preparation was made. Before we actually dove into the play or attempted to deal with the characters, there was a process. Since it is a very dense play, that was its greatest charm for me. It was the fact that at first, we had the ability to open our minds until we make -and our director makes- some decisions about what we will perform.
A: I remember very distinctly that, when I read the play for the first time because I knew its theme, I had specific expectations regarding what I was about to read. It proved them all wrong! I expected to read a play about the women who were tortured during the dictatorship and everything that entails. However, its structure, the characters, the conception of the idea, the humour, were nothing like what I expected. That is what made it exceptionally charming. I remember saying, I want to work on this now.
3. The play leads to a concern regarding the realisation of who we are, what we do and why. Even though it refers to the Military Dictatorship of Chile, why do you think it “mirrors” so well the problems of our times?
N: It’s true what you say, since of course, it’s a play, with actions, characters, and direct relationships. But at the same time, because it relies a lot on the narrative part, it gives the characters the opportunity to talk to the audience about things in a more direct manner. So, the action part “breaks” a little and the narrative part starts evolving in different ways. To me, this is worth so much, because, we humans are not only our experiences, but we are also the stories we have been told, we are our history, and we are even the history of our parents. So, in this way, the play leads me to the thought that we are a function of all these things, not only of those we feel now but also of those that came before them. It’s a thread that unravels.
A: Such a great question, especially today, because we honour the remembrance of people gone during the Holocaust*. This play was written some years ago about events that happened thirty years after the Holocaust, and it has a similar range. Humanity has this memory of horror, what it means on one hand to become a beast and on the other hand to be dehumanised and these things happened again in thirty years, and they happen now, and they will happen in the future. Therefore, this question is raised by the play, and I think that art has worth only when it raises questions like this: to wonder why people came to the point to do these things to other people. And then you study them, and you read about them. But why do you do them again? Unfortunately, there is no answer to this question. Each one of us must find their own.
L: Guys, we are about to perform this play in one and a half hours. Why should we already feel that everything is hopeless? (laughs). However, the play surely has to do with today, because, exactly as Angeliki and Natasa said, unfortunately, some things happen. I don’t know -I imagine that you have thought about it too (addressing the girls)-, is it inevitable? Is human nature like this? What’s the problem? But why is all this happening? What gives me the chills, is the fact that it’s a fact that these things have happened, and they will happen again. It’s terrifying!
A: If something doesn’t change structurally.
N: However, I will add that the play, but also, we as humans, has great philosophical extensions, but it also has a political dimension. Its approach is that we are not all inside a boiling pot. No! We make decisions, we have responsibilities, and we take a stand!
4. Of all these issues, which you just mentioned, and which are highlighted through this beautiful play, which one is the strongest for you? Which one sends the most powerful message?
L: I go by a particular phrase: each one feels what they feel. Because I really see this around us all the time, even in the simplest of things. You may be going through a heartbreak, and someone might tell you I would never act like this. You are someone else, I don’t care how you would act. Or they say, we saw this person on television, she is a victim of rape. Well, she cannot be a victim of rape and be so smiley and calm. If I had been raped, I would have done that. Well sure -I hope it never happens to you, but if it does- we can never know how you will react. There isn’t a specific way of reacting to abusive behaviour or to trauma. Each one feels what they feel, and each person reacts differently. I go by these two phrases of the play.
A: Surely, it’s totally different how we may see what we do on stage because it’s very studied. It’s different when we see the audience’s reactions -which are not always the same, but certainly, up to a point people communicate with the play regarding certain things. It’s amazing and very beautiful that they still get horrified with horror. It’s nice, it gives you hope! We live in 2023, every day you see awful things happening, but still, people, when you talk to them in a human way, they get horrified with horror and it’s very beautiful! They don’t breathe, when these things happen on stage, and it’s very nice because they leave the theatre, and they remember a knot in their throat or in their stomach. We, people, must let go so we can feel different things because the way I will express my opposition, or my horror is very different from someone else’s. And in a way, this defines where you stand regarding everything that happens, because on one hand, one should feel what they should feel and they may feel differently, but on the other hand, we are part of a society, and we are judged according to both what we feel and how we react to things.
5. At the end of the play, we hear from you a very beautiful text talking about women in the way that they should actually be considered. What do you believe should change in society, so -in the year 2023- this play should not be heard only behind the closed doors of a show?
L: Certain politics. I have specific examples. I was with a friend who works in an advertising agency in London, and, while we were talking, she said to me that there had been a… how can I say it… a command, in order to hire female directors in commercials. For example, among three directors, one of them should be female. I tell her, yeah sure, but isn’t it awful, because it means that someone else who’s better…? And she tells me that within two years there had been many female directors, who reached a very high level because they were given the opportunity. So, I believe that if certain things don’t change… Or, for instance, maternity leave. Not going to work and getting asked if you are in a relationship or if you’re thinking of having a child. They see you as a possible problem, instead of what you really are! Because a woman that can have a child has thought about so many things, so she can make her everyday life easier, she will surely provide solutions for a job as well.
N: This text you’re talking about was our own addition, it’s not in the play. I was very sceptical when it came to whether we should include it in the show or not because I think that the author gives his play an ending anyway. So, I was a bit concerned about the dramaturgy, in relation to why an addition like this is needed by us artistically. After all, even though I still don’t know if it is needed, I think that people want it. This probably means that it’s not taken for granted, because the reason that I might not have wanted to include it was that I was saying, are we maybe saying something that’s given? It’s not! I agree with what Lila said before, that this has to do with visibility. And visibility means that something that we say now, and we consider it given, it may not be. So, as soon as we say it -especially in theatre- it gains prominence, it gains value, it gains the space that it deserves regarding everything that happens. Well, one part is visibility, and the other is that you somehow identify with the women by saying that I am there too, I hear myself and someone mentions me. But men respectively… somehow it concerns everyone in the audience, it implicates them… In this specific part I think we need it -actually, the world needs it.
A: I think it’s necessary. I would really like it if we didn’t ask this question and have this conversation now, but we live in a country where women are killed every day and the term femicide cannot be recognised legally. The story of the play is about something different, but nonetheless very specific: the tortures of women, which were very specific and very different from those of men. A man coming to see the show -we have talked about it many times with friends, acquaintances and people we don’t know- is shocked by very physical things that he hears that happened. Women never focus on that because they know. All these things happen to them in their everyday lives. Twenty-four hours a day you come up against sexism, racism, against, against, against…
Outside the closed doors of a theatre, without scripts and directors, who can decide for us? There are women they said and it’s true. They are here. They lead. They make decisions. They write history.
The same goes for our protagonists, who are called to decide what is going to be the future of the Villa after all.
*27/01, International Holocaust Remembrance Day to honour the victims of the Holocaust in the years of Nazi Germany
You can find part2 of “On Fridays we Love: The Villa” with a click here:
Photo credits: Χρίστος Συμεωνίδης
