The State Theater of Northern Greece, in co-production with the Acropolis Theatre, after the very successful tour in theaters all over Greece, presents to the Athenian public, the production "OUR BIG CIRCUS", of Iakovos Campanellis, in music & conductor on stage by Stavros Xarchakos. Direction: Sotiris Hatzakis.
They star: George Armenis, Tasos Nousias, Marina Aslanoglou. Singer: Zacharias Karounis
"Our Big Circus", this emblematic work of Iakovos Campanellis, is a station not only for the modern Greek theater, but also for modern social and political Greek history. Through songs and satirical and dramatic episodes, the work runs through all the important moments of Greek history: the ancient world, Byzantium, the Turkish occupation, his revolution 1821, the reign of Otto, the Asia Minor disaster, his war 1940 they are only some of the main stations of the course described in this project-document, which remains unchanged over time and as relevant today as ever.
"Our Big Circus" was staged for the first time this summer 1973 at the Athinaion Theater. Stavros Xarchakos wrote the music for the show and Evgenios Spatharis edited the sets. The protagonists of the show are Jenny Karezis, Kostas Kazakos, Dionysis Papagiannopoulos, Christos Kalavrouzos and Timos Perleggas. Performer of the songs is Nikos Xylouris. The massive turnout and great public response to the first upload of the work upset the dictatorial regime, which forced the show to stop. After the fall of the dictatorship the show was staged again at the Acropolis Theatre.
Thirty-nine years after its first presentation, the work was staged again by the KTHBE, in co-production with the Acropolis Theatre, with Stavros Xarchakos, the leading composer whose music characterized that first performance of ΄73, to be present on stage himself conducting his 9-member orchestra while the audience will watch the current protagonists: Giorgos Armenis, Tasso Nousia, Marina Aslanoglou and Zacharias Karounis in the song.
Thoughts on the Art Director's work & Director of the show
"Our Great Circus" is a testimony to the timelessness of our National adventure. A folk epic in which the virtues but also the pathologies of the race are written in relief, the ups and downs, the struggles and anxieties of a people, which laden with its heavy history, tests his stride towards the oracle of an ambiguous future. An immersion of the Patriarch of post-war dramaturgy in the "divine comedy" of the merciless Greek narrative.
It was described as the "social phenomenon" of the summer.
In 40 stations of a triumphal tour attended it 100.000 spectators.
"Our Great Circus" returns to its "home".,
at the Acropolis Theatre, after 39 years.
