Lyto Triantafyllidou’s adaptation of Dario Fo’s acclaimed and extensive Mistero Buffo is thankfully a concise one, constructed aptly for these times. Fresh from an award-winning tour in the USA, the production is in town for just four days, swooping in to tease some Mediterranean wisdom, before perhaps wisely jetting off once again.

Ark4Art, continuing his stunning career at the London art scene, offered us four amazing nights last week. Always a pioneer in the presentation of Greek artists in the British capital, this time, Ark4Art invited the young, talented actor Panos Vlachos and the charismatic director Lyto Triandafyllidou, who excel abroad. Mistero Buffo, solo pièce célèbre, by the Italian Nobelist Dario Fo, was hosted in the atmospheric space of The Cockpit, Theater of Ideas for four unique performances.

It looks like the Acre International Fringe Festival has lined up an abundance of unorthodox entertainment and will send the patrosns home with food for thought. 

Το Mistero Buffo του Ντάριο Φο είναι ένα από τα πιο γνωστά έργα του Ιταλού Νομπελίστα συγγραφέα, με το οποίο ο ίδιος ταξίδεψε τον κόσμο ερμηνεύοντας τον ρόλο του Guillare, ενός κλόουν που αφηγείται ιστορίες της Βίβλου. Ακολουθώντας τα βήματα του Φο, η παράσταση του Mistero Buffo, έκανε πρεμιέρα τον Μάιο του 2016 στην Νέα Υόρκη στο Balcony Theater της West Park Presbeterian Church, ενώ επαναλήφθηκε λίγο αργότερα, στην ίδια πόλη, στο πλαίσιο του United Solo Theater Festival, όπου απέσπασε και το βραβείο του Best Physical Theater Show 2016. Tον Ιούνιο του 2017, το Mistero Buffo πήρε μέρος στο Hollywood Fringe Festival στο Λος Άντζελες, όπου βραβεύτηκε με το Hollywood Fringe Producer’s Award 2017, ενώ τον Σεπτέμβριο, ο Guillare βρέθηκε σε ένα ακόμα μεγάλο θεατρικό κέντρο των ΗΠΑ, το Chicago, συμμετέχοντας στο Chicago Fringe Festival.

Το ταξίδι δεν τελειώνει εδώ!

Sometimes you get surprised by what you see and sometimes you get shocked by learning what you believed you saw wasn't exactly why you thought it would be. These are the times when doing your homework is crucial, as was the case after viewing Mistero Buffo

The show starts with a great promise.  The audience is in the round, and Panos has slipped into the circle.  While we are waiting for the show to begin, Panos asks somebody quietly "Are you here for the miracle?"  And he continues to ask this, of multiple members of the audience, and then through this he starts to tell his story.  And what is theatre if not a miracle?  As he starts to enact the miracle, he tells the story of how he was changed by Jesus, and then he starts to act out all of the parts.

Award-winning play debuts in Chicago, starring Greek actor Panos Vlahos & directed by Lyto Triantafyllidou. 

Fo is dead, the Sixties are over and defamed and the fat cats are fatter than ever, so, in these much less radical and far more secular days of ours, the impact and assault of Fo’s original work may baffle most audiences.  However Vlahos’ honesty of intent and his clownish mastery that detonates on stage in an explosion of agonized humanity in order to find resurrection in a combative mockery of the masses is mesmerizing to watch.

Lyto Triantafyllidou’s Los Angeles production of the renowned play “Mistero Buffo” by Dario Fo, a one-man performance starring Greek actor Panos Vlahos, just won the prestigious 2017 Hollywood Fringe Festival’s Encore Producers’ Award. As a result, the play’s Hollywood run has been extended!

In this new staging by director Lyto Triantafyllidou, the audience witnesses a one-man show, where New York acclaimed Greek actor Panos Vlahos emulates different characters. Dressed in shabby and loose-fitting light-colored clothes the protagonist moves in subtle lighting of bare surroundings. Towards a poor theatre, where the actor is the only one we see, the audience comes to witness a bizarre spectacle of paranoia, fear, violence and comical outbursts. The only props are wine and bread, that the protagonist offers to the audience as part of the communion. He encourages the audience to eat and drink from his flesh, while the audience is the witness.

The very absence of a setting is the very presence of the performer, as a solitary and paranoid schizoid that seeks for a vengeful redemption, communion and recognition by the public. Panos Vlahos invites the audience in a personalized experience through monologues, soliloquies, dialogues and crowd scenes that redefine the notion of order, martyrdom, communion, performer and audience.

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The feeling of dislocation works well in the space of the church/theater, drawing on the Brechtian alienation effect, or as it now more commonly known, the estrangement effect. The audience knows this is a play, we see the lights and the metal bars that make up the set, but the interaction between audience and actor is very real. Vlahos is drenched in sweat from the effort of portraying so many characters, and he is so skilled at his work that we believe there are dozens of people there on the stage, some of them hilarious, others poignant, but all distinctly human. The humanity is the key to this play and to the medieval mystery plays which helped the people of that time period engage with their religion in a more vital way and on a more human level than they could experience in the often intimidating setting of a medieval cathedral. The play and the dynamic performance of Panos Vlahos, expecially, are not to be missed. More information on the play is available online.

Mistero Buffo, written in 1969 by Nobel Prize winning playwright Dario Fo is a political exploration of popular Medieval Mysteries, consisting of several scenes re-imagining Biblical Stories and establishing new protagonists against religious rule. Dario Fo distorts popular religious stories, in order to further denounce the elite and historical establishment revealing the point where the human meets the divine. This is the second realization of Mistero Buffo by Panos Vlahos and Lyto Triantafyllidou. After a successful run at the Balcony Theater in May 2016, the Guilare returns on stage and invites the audience to challenge the puritanical stereotypes of religion traditions with laughter and gives a human dimension to the concept of miracles.

Οι εναλλαγές, από το κωμικό στοιχείο στο δράμα, εκτελέστηκαν με άριστη δεξιότητα, τόσο από τον ηθοποιό -μέσα από την αξιοθαύμαστη υποκριτική και κινησιολογία τύπου-, όσο και από τη σκηνοθέτη με τα πρωτότυπα ευρήματα της.

Η παράσταση ήταν sold out με το κοινό να χειροκροτά ασταμάτητα μετά το τέλος της παράστασης ενθουσιασμένο.

Μετά από το επιτυχημένο ανέβασμα της παράστασης στο Balcony Theater, της West-Park Presbyterian Church, τον περασμένο Μάιο, ο Πάνος Βλάχος και η Λητώ Τριανταφυλλίδου συναντιούνται ξανά, παρουσιάζοντας μια νέα προσέγγιση πάνω στο αριστουργηματικό κείμενο του Darioi Fo.

Ο κύριος πρωταγωνιστής αυτού του θρησκευτικού τσίρκου είναι ο Giullare, ένας κλόουν, που μέσα από μονολόγους, αφηγήσεις, διαλογικές σκηνές και σκηνές πλήθους επιτυγχάνει να ανατρέψει κάθε ιδέα τάξης και εξουσίας που προϋπάρχει στο κοινό. Ο Πάνος Βλάχος, ερμηνεύοντας πλήθος διαφορετικών ρόλων, προσκαλεί το κοινό να γελάσει με κάθε συντηρητικό στερεότυπο της χριστιανικής παράδοσης, αποδεικνύοντας πως το γέλιο μπορεί να είναι κι αυτό από μόνο του ένα θαύμα!

Η παράσταση προτείνει μια πολιτική ανάγνωση σε ιστορίες της Βίβλου, από την οπτική γωνία ενός γελωτοποιού που έρχεται για να διαταράξει την τάξη των πραγμάτων.

Ένα θρησκευτικό τσίρκο που δομείται μέσα από μονολόγους, αφηγήσεις και σκηνές πλήθους για έναν ηθοποιό!