James Karas
Neil Simon’s Fools is a fable about a 19th century Ukrainian village
whose inhabitants are stupid. Two hundred years ago a girl refused to marry the
Count’s son and he cursed them so now they are all stupid but charming,
innocent and lovable. Enter Leon (Kostis Rampavillas), a teacher from Moscow
who is looking for a job and finds a village of simpletons.
Director Grigoris Papadopoulos of the National Theatre of Northern
Greece has staged a production of Fools that has managed to remove the
charm, reduce the humour and deliver a very dull production of an admittedly
second rate play.
Fools is supposed to open in the village square
where the schoolteacher arrives and is charmed by the surroundings.
Papadopoulos has his own ideas about the opening scene. He has the cast walk on
stage and chant some words as they move around robotically. I have no idea what
this was supposed to produce aside from annoyance.
Leon meets the shepherd Snetsky (played by the popular Tasos
Pezirkianidis – you know he is popular because the audience applauded when he
stepped on the stage) who establishes that he is a charming idiot. Snetsky has
lost his flock and asks Leon to tell the sheep, if he sees them, that he is
looking for them. He has a couple of dozen – well, fourteen – sheep. He can’t
remember his first name but he calls himself “Something Something Snetsky.”
Yenchna, the vendor (Poluxeni
Spyropoulou), calls out that she is selling fish
but has only flowers. It is not her fault the fishermen did not catch any fish.
She has to sell something and offers flowers as if they were fish. She
complains that she has not received a letter from her daughter for a year. But
she lives here, the postman Mishkin (Roula Pantelidou) reminds her. Thank God,
replies Yenchna, otherwise I would have had no news from her.
Leon meets the most educated man in town, Dr. Zubritsky (Vasilis
Spyropoulos) and his wife Lenya (Giolanta Balaoura), both stupid of course, but they reveal the origin of the curse. They have
hired Leon to educate their dumb as a stump daughter Sophia. Leon soon meets
Sophia (Kleio Danai Othonaiou), stupid and ignorant but very fetching even in
an ugly orange dress.
Leon and Sophia fall in love and the plot will lead to the inevitable,
including the breaking of the curse. The play has charm and humour but
unfortunately this production manages to do away with just about all of that.
The set consists of a few painted, moveable panels that represent
abstract views of a village or something. They do nothing to bring out the
essential idea of a village in a fable. The costumes are modern or worse with
no attempt to give any notion of a magical place where loveable people live and
love will triumph. The actors are trapped in a production that goes against the
essential quality of the play which is that of a mythical place that we will
enjoy visiting for a couple of hours.
The play was performed in the small and well-attended Closed Municipal
Theatre of Sykies in suburban Thessaloniki. The unfortunate adjective “closed”
I assume is intended to differentiate it from the nearby open air theatre and
not to indicate that it is shut. The National Theatre of Northern Greece has
adopted the laudable idea of bringing theatre to the people instead of waiting
for them to travel to the center of the city.
The people of Sykies were treated to a play that can provide many laughs
and considerable pleasure but unfortunately this production provided neither in
any significant quantity.
____________
Fools by Neil Simon
in a translation by Errikos Belies opened on February 9, 2018 at the Closed
Municipal Theatre of Sykies, Riga Feraiou and Megaron, Sykies, Thessaloniki,
Greece. www.ntng.gr
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