With this intention, Thodoris Skyftoulis goes on stage knowing that it will not happen but we need this utopia to be able to live... Thodoris talked to me about the show "People and Mice" directed by Vassilis Bismbikis that he is now participating in, their collaboration, the similarities of the show with the now that we live and the embellished life that the viewer wants to see, not wanting to be uncomfortable.How does it feel to be part of this show that is being staged again and after the success it had?Vassilis and the Cartel team and I had worked together before when we did "Crime and Punishment" and it was a condition that was very close to me both as a process and as an attitude to things in the theatre and how they approach each theme of the show. So there was just joy and anticipation. I consider myself lucky not to have seen the show because it created a character from the beginning and I think that the result, regardless of the fact that it is still early, is very close to both the aesthetics of the show and my personal aesthetics and finally to Vassilis' aesthetics with the way he approaches things. Apart from Vassilis, you regularly work with Lena Kitsopoulou as well; how much do you agree with this raw realism in classical or non-classical works? To approach texts or situations or stories the closer to reality the more interesting it becomes and the more vital it is for the artist and for the director and for the writer. Theatre in Greece is so backward that everything that happens on stage or in Vassilis' performances, and much more so in Lena's, is considered something exotic. That we are presented with something that we cannot understand while we live it in our everyday life in a very violent and brutal way. Simply because the theatre is a mirror the spectator does not accept it and it seems to him inflated and exaggerated. Unfortunately we live in a deeply conservative country where what it says to you is don't do theatre or go with the flow and present me with an embellished situation of my life. Would you like to talk to me about your collaboration with Vasilis? He has an axis of intense realism, I have a more drawn out situation on stage which I like because I think it reveals things in a backwards way and somehow complements each other both on stage and in thinking about how you approach either the role, the performance, or a scene. We didn't have to say much because there's a common life path, we have common characteristics, he's lived intensely through the same thing and I've lived intensely through it and all of that somehow brings you together without having to say much. Have you ever felt like a second-class citizen? It's a play about a world in a state of exception. These are people we don't see, or if we do it's on a newscast or in Manolada where you see a hundred beds in a barn, these are really citizens that no one recognizes. The only thing that recognises them is the black wage that they make, whether it is a refugee, a migrant, or a breadwinner who has been poorly paid. But it's such a contemporary play because it's a Western play. It talks about the West and the savagery of capitalism, of work, of relationships between people in a very powerful and profound way. In this capitalist world we live in, is there room for tenderness, real relationships, friendship? The tenderness, the love, the emotion between them, it's a universal relationship. A relationship of ancient tragedy, I would say. Because they really have nothing to hold on to. These two guys can be anywhere and be there for each other. The axis of the play points out the need for man to hold on to someone else as it happens in our own society. Not far from our country two wars are taking place, would you compare the situation there to the title of the play?Certainly because we see a society that is the one that will pay in the end. Hamas started it and Israel has created a genocide in its own way. So we understand with these two events that it is always the people who will pay for it. In a world that changes so quickly what do you want to keep original?What I keep is what I feel every time I start a performance or a rehearsal. That going on stage I believe that I'm going to change the world with what happens and I try to do that in my everyday life. So the constant process of a human being being on the alert for rebellion to change the world because it only takes a moment. That for me is a great experience and vitally important. I think that every time I go on stage I will change the world, I won't change it, but that's my intention, otherwise I can't go on stage. We need a utopia to move forward