19/08/2024
Eugenia Tzirtzilaki’s That’swhatshesaid screening and discussion with the director at Barın Han on Thursday, August 22, 2024 at 18:00. This event will be held in English only.
That’swhatshesaid deals with the most common patterns of female representation on stage but also, more broadly, in what we call the public sphere.
In the play, women’s lines and stage directions for women from the most performed plays of a US theater season are isolated and recomposed anew. This is a unique play in its own merit, a collage made from the words of several contemporary playwrights and a feminist experiment all in one. By isolating the women’s lines, without ever listening to the voices of the men, we observe women’s behavior; it seems disorganized, but also evident of the role reserved for women in modern theater.
What do they do with their bodies? What words do they use? How often do they ask others what to do? How many times do they apologize? How much do they cry? The result is a condensed presentation of the role assigned to women within mass culture. Never listening to the voices with which the women converse, makes the show feels like an audition for the full range of roles available to women today, in the theater and in life alike.
In the play, a woman moves in and out of many roles, using a few props, on a stage that could be empty of occupied by any set design imaginable. By watching an actress change multiple characters on stage, we simultaneously see her alternating between representational patterns that we are used to seeing, anywhere. Thus, the dramaturgy places the theatrical event in a post-theatrical setting where the setting could be actually our lives. The play seems to pose many questions to the viewer, with a central one being: What is going on with female representation? How does a woman find her place in the world?
All the plays that That’swhatshesaid deconstructs and reassembles are written or have been adopted within the last decade. The play was performed in Greek in winter season 2023 with great success and is now screened in different venues to ignite on of the most interesting conversations today, that blends culture and politics.
