The project

“The Kindly Ones”, an international production between Greece, Austria and France (La Chartreuse – Centre national des écritures du spectacle), carried by La Manufacture in France, celebrated its world premiere in Austria during the Festival of the Regions 2019. Directed and written by Elli Papakonstantinou, it was presented on the memorial site of Camp Mauthausen. The project aims to be a strong political and social statement on the developments and the ongoing rise not only of far-right populism in Europe, but also of far-right radicalism and its effects.
For the Austrian version, the libretto drew from “Mauthausen” by Iakvos Kambanellis, a Greek author who survived the Mauthausen concentration camp and shaped in dialogue with “The Kindly Ones, Oresteia”, by Aeschylus. The performance invites the audience to share food together as they join this network different stories, in which Blaine Reininger’s music plays a major role – alongside an international cast and a local choir of elderly men. It is a hybrid form between theatre performance and live music.
At Camp des Milles, for the French version, the project will be adapted around texts, poems, music, written by prisoners from Camp des Milles, and linked in the same way with La Orestie d´Eschylus. This adaptation will be the subject of a residency at La Chartreuse, Center National des Ecritures du Spectacles, in Villeneuve-les-Avignon, in conjunction with the scientific and educational team of Camp des Milles.
This is the first theatrical project performed on two landmark WWII memorial sites, combining a multifaceted contemporary creation (theater, performance, music, choirs, texts, poetry) and artistic materials created by the prisoners. The project benefits from the UNESCO label.

DIRECTOR ’S NOTE

“It is a mysterious thing, this process of creating a new work. Curious to the dark, committed to translating what is not yet there, all along the process of rehearsing with no certainty of sound or of what to say. Step-by-step, the text, the sound and the body of the performance gradually took shape. That is exciting and scary at the same time. During this process, some writers remained very close to us becoming our precious guides to a world all too cold and stiff: the “Kindly Ones” by Aeschylus, Thukidides’ “Epitaph”, Purcell’s “Cold Song” and of course the texts and poems of Iakovos Kambanellis, the Greek survivor of the Mauthausen Concentration Camp. As from the very beginning we questioned how to touch upon the Holocaust in a light and even humorous way, we soon found ourselves shifting between the ritual and the political sarcasm, the metaphysical and the pragmatic in search of the right tone. In the end, the final assemblage of emotions, thoughts and music was almost a matter of chance.”

Elli Papakonstantinou