Enda Walsh
The Walworth Farce
Direction: Ektoras Lygizos

Dinny, a middle-aged Irishman, is forced to leave Ireland in order to evade arrest after the murder of persons of his family and professional entourage. He settles in London, on Walworth Street, Elephant and Castle, the location of his brother’s house. Protected from the ‘evils of the outside world’, within the suffocating limits of the impoverished flat, he obliges himself and his two sons, Blake and Sean, to engage in a farce based on constant costume – and role- changes. The plot is centered around the happenings of the last day before his escape from Ireland and the motivating ploy is a prize for the best actor. Hayley’s intrusion into this closed system ignites action dramatically culminating to a bloody resolution.

I wanted to write a play about an Irishman abroad and all the lonesomeness and nostalgia that goes with that - of wanting to go home but not being able to… It was a real shock to me that I ended up using the constructs and rhythms of farce because we don't have farce in Ireland’, says Enda Walsh.

Indeed, stylistically, we are treading grounds of the oldest theatre form, known as farce: facetious and extravagant happenings, tragic coincidences, intensive rhythms, false identities, acting virtuosity: all those characteristics of the classical, old-fashioned farce are entwined - with remarkable virtuosity – with the multi-awarded playwright’s personal agonies which lead him directly to the heart of his universe: Irish immigrants, lonesome people, troubled family relations, heroes on the verge of insanity, marginal situations, Beckettian repetitions. The result is a spectacular tour-de-force which Sin-Epi (+,X) has the pleasure to introduce to the Greek audience.

The farce enacted daily on Walworth Street is like a theatrical kaleidoscope: the first hilarious scenes lead into the contrived atmosphere of a primitive – though moving, on occasion – nostalgia, which reveals the sickness contained in the ritual repetition of an outrageous murder. The spectator gradually becomes aware of the tragic facet of heroes striving for redemption through a home-made psychodrama: one cannot be sure if it is cure or torture, relief from a tragic guilt or its constant re-kindling.


Contributors
Director: Ektoras Lygizos
Translation: Katerinia Konstantakou & Ektoras Lygizos
Settings and costumes: Mayou Trikerioti
Lighting design: Max Penzel
Choreography: Mariela Nestora
Dramaturgic process: Katerina Konstantinakou
Make-up: Ioanna Lygizou
Settings assistant: Karla Ehrlih
Directors Assistant: Georgia Psihogiou
Actors: Nikos Gialelis, Thimios Koukios, Deborah Odong, Giorgos Ziovas

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