Synopsis
“Manoli…!”, written in 1986, is a devastating monologue or, as its playwright puts it, a dialogue, balancing private grief and politics. Maria, a sixty-year-old widow, recounts her own Calvary to the only companion she has left: her cat, Manoli. Her only son, Manos, was murdered by paramilitaries in the yard of their own house during the coup of 1974. Years later, faced with unbearable pain, loneliness, and the conspiracy of silence, Maria refuses to accept the oblivion imposed by society. She turns her kitchen into an improvised courtroom, searching for answers and justice. A profoundly human and political play about memory, loss and the need to restore the truth, shedding light on the trauma of an entire era.
In our interpretation, Maria lives, or rather survives, in a world turned upside down, in a normality that no longer exists, in a universe of her own where everything seems different. Where everything exists and does not exist, because the only thing that matters is that justice should be served.
Accessibility
- Audio description and tactile tour for people with visual disabilities
- In Greek, with German and Greek surtitles
The playwright
Georgios Neophytou was born in Nicosia. Between 1967 and 1975, he completed his university studies and went on to write his doctoral thesis at the Karl Marx University of Leipzig. Since 1984 he has worked in theater and television, and between then and 2015 he has written three television series and ten plays.
His texts have been translated into numerous languages, among them English, German, Polish, Czech, Bulgarian, Turkish and Russian, as well as Tagalog (Philippines) and Marathi (India). For his play DNA, he received the Playwriting Award of the Cyprus Theatre Organisation (THOC) Theatre Awards for the 2009–2010 and 2010–2011 seasons. In 2020, he was also honoured with the “Teukros Anthias – Thodosis Pieridis” Award for his contribution to culture.
Credits
Cast
Creative team
After the performance · 16.30
Talkback with the audience
In conversation with the playwright Georgios Neophytou
Moderation: Violeta Lupis
Right after the performance, the playwright of “Manoli...!” talks openly with the audience. A text written in 1986 about the 1974 coup, speaking of memory in a community that has chosen to forget. What does it mean to write about something while the silence around it still holds? How does a monologue survive forty years, and what does an audience in Berlin hear in it today? Its playwright calls it a dialogue, even though the cat never answers. The conversation takes its course from the questions of those in the room.