A Radio Recording by the Greek Theater Workshop of Brussels. Featuring Tasos Nychas and Giannis Ambazis.
What would you do if you were a once-successful stockbroker on the verge of total financial ruin, with only… 50,000 euros left to your name? Certainly not what the protagonist in “The Lower Side of Parthenon” chose to do—employ a homeless, itinerant bookseller to kill him in order to avoid the shame of his fall…
The premise: In contemporary Greece, a stockbroker and a homeless man strike an uneasy “partnership” that teeters disturbingly between ideology and justification, poverty and moral decay, opportunity and devastation, murder and salvation. In a world governed by banks and credit-rating agencies, the true battle lies in confronting one’s own inner demons.
In this struggle, strength no longer resides with the one who holds the wealth. It belongs to the one who holds the knife. The game becomes ever more ruthless. The truths sting as they emerge into the light… As the author observes, “In a well-concealed little village beneath the Acropolis, we all live…”
Minas Vintiadis’ play The Lower Side of Parthenon first premiered successfully at the National Theatre of Northern Greece in October 2015. It was later performed in 2018 at “Alma,” in 2020 at the Theater Workshop of Brussels, in 2023 in Oxford and London, and was included in the curriculum at the University of Cyprus.