Euripides wrote The Bacchae towards the end of his life, in the late 5th century BC. There he brings back to the stage the god Dionysus, the founder of the genre. The god of theatre, otherness, dismemberment and fusion, bliss and destruction, sets up a play that Euripides intended to end with a dismembered body that no one collects.

If what is torn apart on stage is openness to otherness, does it mean that our prospect of opening up to the Other, our own and the world’s –through some kind of initiation, a collective act–, has been lost? Will our pieces never be connected again? Are we doomed, like Pentheus, to live hemmed in within our well-fortified individuality, for otherwise we shall be dismembered? Are there no longer any bridges that connect us with one another, with the Other, with the otherness of our feelings, our ideas, our innermost thoughts, with the absurdity within us, with the absurdity of the world?

Only in our skin there is safety. Whatever is either completely outside us, or completely inside us, will forever remain alien, inviolable, unspoken, unknown, and will therefore be met with violence. Is violence the only language we can understand? A violence that is shut, impenetrable and absolute, a violence, which cannot be susceptible to any kind of initiation that would unlock it, understand it, endure it.

The barrage of Internet images, natural disasters, bombings, mutilated bodies, and dead children in the media, soulless and dead selfies, uncontrolled streams of data, people, products –can we no longer tolerate spirituality, transcendence, uplifting, because the only god we can understand is the god of the Old Testament, the vengeful god, the punitive god? Is that who we deserve?

Or is the dismembered body at once a puzzle that can be completed, a construction that shows us its parts, a spectacle? And is it up to us, the audience, whether and how we shall assemble it?

– Thanos Papakonstantinou

Greece’s first state theatre company was the Royal Theatre, which was founded in 1901 and operated until 1908. It was re-established under the name “National Theatre” in 1930 and opened for the public in March 1932. The National Theatre of Greece (NTG), during its 90 years of existence, has succeeded in creating a powerful theatrical tradition. The NTG Drama School was founded in 1930 and has since operated in tandem with the NTG.

The repertoire of the National Theatre aims at polyphony, promoting a dialogue between tradition, present and future. The revival of Ancient Greek Drama remains a key area of interest for the National Theatre in an effort to combine respect for tradition with new trends. In 1938 the National Theatre of Greece performed its first open-air production of ancient drama, Sophocles’ Electra; the first performance after centuries at the Ancient Theatre of Epidaurus. In 1955 the NTG established the Festival of Epidaurus.

Today, there are six venues in the National Theatre in Ziller Building (2), in Rex Theatre (3) and the School of Athens – Irene Papas (open-air venue). The National Theatre is always open to collaborations with theatres and artists – tours, joint productions with major theatres abroad, participation in international festivals, educational programs, and invitations to important contemporary artists; these are all part of the effort to broaden an already established network. The NTG was a member of the European Theatre’s Union (2009-2020). Since 2022, the NTG is a member of the European Theatre Convention.

The Artistic Director of the National Theatre of Greece is the director Yannis Moschos.

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