These days you can see Rosmersholm performed at Alekton Theatre in Athens. Actor thinks the play is especially relevant to the Greeks today.
- Rebecca and Rosmer, the two main characters in the play, are both anti-heroes, says director Kostis Kapelonis.
Director Kapelonis is thrilled by the complex development in Rosmersholm (Henrik Ibsen, 1886). He chose the play because he thinks it is one of Ibsen's best.
Conflict of ideals in Rosmersholm
The play opens one year after the suicide of the protagonist Rosmer's wife, Beata. Rosmer is a highly respected member of his community. He intends to use his position to support the newly elected government and its reformist, if not revolutionary, agenda. However, when Rosmer announces this to his friend and brother-in-law Kroll, the local schoolmaster, Kroll becomes enraged at what he sees as his friend's betrayal of his ruling-class roots. Kroll then begins an attempt to sabotage Rosmer's plans, confronting him with his relationship with Rebecca who is living in Rosmer’s house. The former priest becomes a pawn in the games of both the conservative and the liberal. Rosmer eventually gives up his dreams, after Rebecca reveals that she has fooled Rosmer’s wife to commit suicide in order to have him completely to herself.
Actor Angelos Kehagias plays the editor of a radical newspaper. Photo: Tina Beate Goa Fagerheim- Criticizes both left and right
The Norwegian Embassy met actor Angelos Kehagias at Alekton Theatre. He is playing the role of Peder Mortensgaard, an editor of the radical newspaper. Kehagias thinks that Rosmersholm is especially relevant to the Greeks today, because of the current social and political challenges.
- This play deals with politics and hypocrisy. My character is fighting for his liberal views, but he is also corrupt. In my opinion, Rosmersholm criticizes both the conservative right wing and the radical left, the actor says.
He thinks that the subjects that Ibsen calls upon never seem to lose relevance.
- In Rosmersholm we investigate the reality behind many faces, issues of morality and the duty of the individual towards himself and towards society.
The play is performed in Greek.
Time: Friday at 21.00,
Saturday and Sunday at 18.30.