A scene from ‘Lysistrata’, directed by Katerina Evangelatos and featuring Chinese actors, which will premiere at the Shanghai Dramatic Arts Centre on April 11. [Lu Yushuo]
I have had the great pleasure of living and working in Shanghai for the past three months. Together with my exceptional Greek collaborators – Alex Drakos Ktistakis, Patricia Apergi, Eva Manidaki, Vasiliki Syrma, and my assistant Alexandros Panou – we are preparing “Lysistrata” by Aristophanes at the Shanghai Dramatic Arts Center, with a cast of 18 Chinese actors. While this is the first time I have been commissioned to create a production in Chinese with a Chinese ensemble, it is not my first encounter with audiences in China.
In June 2024, at the Aranya Theater Festival near Beijing, we presented a new site-specific version of “Hippolytus” (in Greek) for four actors – Orestis Chalkias, Giannis Tsortekis, Elena Topalidou, and Maria Skoula – and one musician, with the score performed live by the production’s composer, Alex Drakos Ktistakis. The performance took place in a striking, unconventional venue resembling a temple, set on a vast beach. We performed four times, and on the final evening there was standing room only, as enthusiastic word of mouth had spread among festival audiences. What impressed us most was how many young people were in the audience – the average age seemed to be between 25 and 28 – as well as the attentiveness and responsiveness with which they followed the performance, despite its density of text.
Later in 2024, we were invited by one of Asia’s oldest and most prestigious festivals, the Hong Kong Arts Festival, to present “Hippolytus” in its original Epidaurus version in their main theater (1,200 seats). We traveled with a team of 35 people, in a co-production between the National Theater of Greece, the Athens Festival, and the cultural organization Lykofos, and performed over four days. The production was very warmly received; I particularly remember audiences waiting for us outside the theater and engaging in long, thoughtful conversations. As ancient Greek drama is rarely staged in Asia, there was considerable interest in both the form and the content of the work. Many spectators remarked on how strikingly modern Euripides felt.
We are experiencing something similar now during the preparation of “Lysistrata,” in our discussions with the cast and colleagues here. They are struck by how unfamiliar Aristophanes’ style feels, how bold the theatrical form is – with its fusion of speech, song, and dance – and by the sharp political critique embedded in the text. Equally compelling to them are the ideas expressed about the role of women in society, as well as the fact that Aristophanes – a man writing for male actors and a male audience – places a woman at the center of the play, equipping her with the wisdom and strength to resolve a long-standing political crisis and bring an end to a devastating war.
It is also worth noting that, over the past five years, feminism has begun to assert a visible presence in China’s sociopolitical sphere and everyday life, particularly in Shanghai. In this context, our contemporary staging of “Lysistrata “has taken on an almost revolutionary dimension. We are now in the final phase of rehearsals and eagerly anticipating the premiere on April 11, along with the discussions that this first presentation of the play in China is expected to generate.
Over the past three years, alongside my directing work, I have had the honor of being invited to major festivals in China as both a jury member and a speaker, addressing issues of cultural strategy as well as ancient drama. In every talk on the subject, I encounter a remarkable eagerness among the younger generation of Chinese artists to engage with this genre and explore contemporary approaches to staging it.
Katerina Evangelatos is a stage director for theater and opera.