Interview
Evi Koutalianou: The work is mainly about loneliness, companionship and people's need for connection.
Evi Koutalianou is currently participating in the successful theatrical performance "Prague" directed by Themis Theocharoglou. There she plays Susanna, a bohemian woman of the extremes. The play tells us about the loneliness of our times and the companionship that has disappeared, at the same time how through comedy we can talk and soothe pain.
Second year of the show's success would you like to say a few words?
The story takes place one night in an apartment in the centre of Thessaloniki. Benny and Haris have been a couple for 15 years and are preparing a dinner to welcome their dear friend Susanna, who has returned to Thessaloniki after a long time. During her visit, memories unfold, desires are expressed, truths and secrets are revealed, which shake the relationships of the three friends. Based on the two men's disagreement over the issue of adopting a child - a decision that confronts them with the existential need for continuity, the assumption of responsibility, the fear of transition to a different everyday life, the passage into the condition of parenthood - the author highlights contemporary social issues as illuminated through interpersonal relationships and current deadlocks.
What is Prague?
Prague is the time when you met love. It is the longing to discover a new city, a country, a whole culture. Prague is wanting to leave your home and wishing for something exciting to happen. At the same time, Prague is the past. That past that we are still stuck in. That we deny that it's past anymore and so we end up living today but stuck in yesterday.
What is your role in the show?
Susanna. Susanna is a dear friend of the couple who visits them after a year and something she hasn't seen in a year. Susanna is a creature stuck in the past. She is clearly trapped in her image. She changes moods from one moment to the next, is hyperactive, strict with herself and others, and above all honest. She is of the extreme. Or of height or depth, never in the middle and about. Susanna is a bohemian. An explosive woman who knows how to make her presence felt.
Tell me about your collaboration with Themis Theocharoglou.
Themis is a wonderful bright creature. Airy. An artist in every sense of the word. Prague is being staged this year for the second year and I am replacing Lucia Vassiliou, in the role of Susanna. The project was very difficult, mainly due to time constraints. Themis stood by me from the very first moment. He opened his home to me and we studied step by step the versatile and complex character of Susanna. He guided me in the best possible way. He opened new paths for me and artistically he definitely took me many steps forward. She developed me as an actor. She is a multi-tasker. A caring man with a big hug and patience. The gratitude I feel is great and I'm glad he came into my life.
What are the concerns that are addressed in the play and confronted by the audience?
The play is mainly about loneliness, companionship and people's need for connection. It talks about the difficulties, especially in long-term relationships and their complexity. What it's like for two people to grow up together and what it means to give in or fight.
How easy is it through comedy to talk about all these issues that hurt us?
Maybe through comedy it's easier to talk about pain. Maybe if we camouflage something with humor it lightens and hurts less. After all, the most serious things are usually said in jest.
How does the play and the characters balance the then and the now?
This is perhaps for me the most important, the heaviest part of the play. This confrontation of the past with the present. They are intertwined. One cannot exist without the other and yet we often tend to get trapped in the past, to stay stuck in the past and lose the present. And this is something that all three characters in the play do, each in their own way is stuck in the then and therefore bogged down in the now.
Would you like to comment on the issue of procreation, which is one of the issues addressed in the play?
The play raises the issue of adoption, or procreation in a better way, by same-sex couples, but also the issue of procreation by women who are at the age of transition. Unfortunately, women are not able to conceive at any age they want, while same-sex couples do not yet have the legal right to adopt a child. It is of course sad that the state itself won't let two people give love to a child because they are heteronormative.
Must we constantly find something important to move forward?
That important thing is always ourselves. He will take us forward or leave us behind. Our evolution does not depend on anyone or anything but ourselves. Our will to live, our longing to learn something new, to do something exciting or to do nothing at all. So you move forward by making choices.