Interview
Interview with George Katsis
Giorgos Katsis introduces us to his new directorial project "The trees are still blooming".
My first interview-conversation with George Katsis was when he was directing the play "Leontes and Lena" by Beechner. Since then a coffee is always a must for his new artistic step, this is because I find that this drive and at the same time love that I see him working with, fits how I see the world and people.
So on the occasion of his new directorial work we met in Exarchia for a coffee and to talk to me about it.
"It all started last July when I gave an acting seminar to 10 people who, on their own initiative, were to be the protagonists in the new play I wrote, 'The trees are still blooming'."
To write this, as he told me, he did a sorting through his old writings that he had stored and picked out those that had some common structure where by stepping on them he created a new short story with a literary form and narrative because that is what fascinates him most in the theatre. At the same time, he didn't hide the fears he had while working on it because he hadn't directed for a long time. Nevertheless, he left himself to his instinct and to the understanding he had with the children on the subject matter and the tools they worked with.
Caught by the avant-garde title of the play as he described it, I asked him if he believed that the trees were still blooming, he identified himself as a man who does not believe in hopeful messages and that what attracted him to the text and the title is that the text itself negates the beautiful title, at the same time he did not hide his wonder how it is possible that these few trees are still blooming under tons of concrete.
While he did not want to symbolize today's man as a tree, because nowadays his contact with the natural landscape has been completely lost and cut off from it. Instead, he likened him to the killer of it on the altar of profit and the provision of services to tourists who come to leave money.
Coming to the essence of the show, he stressed that"it is a narrative - one man's thoughts around many things. He deals with God, his childhood, death, his father's illness and we see that what makes him hold on in the face of a difficult existence is his own thinking. That he thinks substantially and not superficially."
He is confronted with too many questions and this transaction erodes him. He concludes that"the watering of every man is to be able to think. Not to agree to what is objectively good, but to think whether what he considers good is really good." This is the main point. While he did not fail to mention expressing a complaint that "no man is cultivated to think by his school years, the church and by society itself".
"The biggest battle we have to fight is for free thinking. I mean really free. Free from moral barriers, free from Christian remnants, free from legal rules, free from obligation to our elders all these things as long as we negotiate them and don't accept them, not deny them just think about them is a watering place to endure. And in the end if something is going to kill us let it be that. Let it be thought and not our human underestimation or our resignation to thought or futility."
Noticing a pessimism in his words, I asked him if he felt optimistic... he pointed out that "a terrible industry is being established around optimism worldwide. With fronts that sell you peace whether it's called psychoanalysis or religion to say you're on the right side, when in fact they are deeply confused models of people. The absence of thinking as a whole or as a member of a whole has disappeared. Everyone is looking at what will bring them to not have a panic attack which may be their real liberation."
Moving into the political section and feeling disillusioned by the left wing we wondered why the country and the people tolerate a right wing government he pointed out to me that this is largely due to the many relief options provided to us. Whether it's called social media, Netflix, anything that provides you with a false sense of joy. The conversation came to an end by pointing out that "only a structured soul in turmoil can offer a good film or a good performance. And now we go empty to make films and performances to fill up. This reversal is a great condemnation. To offer you have to fill up."
With a relieved "Well, I'm full" from my side, we closed the conversation and walked out of the café with the hope that maybe one day the man will let the trees bloom..