Interview with Dimitris Papaioannou - Annotation
This post discusses a print document:
Papaioannou, Dimitris. Production Program. “Interview with Dimitris Papaioannou” The Great Tamer. 2017 Print.
For my second annotated text source, I chose the interview with Dimitris Papioannou from The Great Tamer production leaflet. The interview was conducted by Moïra Dalant who is a theatre critique of the Avignon Theatre Festival and was translated by Gaël Schmidt-Cléach.
Throughout the interview, Papioannou goes into detail about the inspirations that shaped the performance and also the themes that he has scattered throughout. He goes on to describe how the main idea of the play is “an archaeological theme: the idea [being] to bury metaphorical acts we will then dig out and reveal, in order to speak of identity, of the past, of legacy, and of our subconscious inner life.” Inspired by the news item of a young boy who committed suicide after being bullied by his classmates and was found half-buried in the muddy ground, this tragedy became a metaphor for creation, as Papioannoi creates, imitates, and destroys life with The Great Tamer. This piece explores Man’s quest for truth and clarity and how the truth darkens and destroys humanity when found. Moreover, Papaioannou describes how this quest is infinite “like Sisyphus with his rock.” due to the thirst for rediscovery and new beginnings. The audience is taken on a journey by following a “Beckettian-looking” character through his fantasies about humanity.
Papaioannou’s work is based on an exploration of the feelings of “balance and imbalance, of illusion and reality through the manipulation of light, raw and ordinary materials, temporality, and the body. Furthermore, Papaioannou states in the interview how “the scenes are infused with a dreamlike distance” where the audience begins to question reality. This questioning of reality became possible through the use of circus, the set where discoveries and deconstructions could be made, the lighting and the soundscape which added layers of aural materiality to the piece. Papaioannou also lists surrealist references he has incorporated throughout the performance that are supposed to guide the audience on an artistic and visual journey that defies borders and temporality: from El Greco to Magritte, by way of Raphael, Botticelli, and Rembrandt.
This source is helpful to my research on sound design because it gives me the detailed context of the director’s artistic goals for the performance text so I can properly express how the incorporation of certain aspects of the soundscape added to his incorporation of the absurd for example. However, the limitation for this source is that Papaioannou does not mention anything about sound specifically, so any conclusions I make about the soundscape will be based solely on my personal experience watching the show and my speculations on how well it aligned with the overarching themes of exploration, dream-like realities, and the absurd.
