Irene

Who will live in the summer
And who tomorrow?;
Not even time knows it.
Let alone the star
The Epidaurus
The Nations are falling again
On the floors
Listen to my sweet strumming
From the edge of this pit
With the bodies
May there be peace.
Miss Universe
Why is every war of mine
It's me and myself
It's a civil war

H Irene It is a celebration of a lost rural world, a comic, irresistible argument, a festival of the common man with the very smoke of war as their material, a bonfire in the midst of horror.

Nikos Karanos, Foivos Delivorias and Angelos Triantafyllou are the main accomplices in a new performance, a new adaptation, an answer to madness with madness.

Aristophanes' original comedy was first performed at the Great Dionysia in 421 BC and won second prize. It was written at a critical historical juncture, shortly before the Peace of Nicias, and in reaction to the hope for a halt to hostilities that emerged thanks to the deaths of the war-mongering generals, the Athenian Cimon and the Spartan Brasidas at the Battle of Amphipolis. The comedy reflects the intense social weariness from the Peloponnesian War and addresses, with lyrical eloquence and the familiar Aristophanic sarcasm, the irrational obsession with war and its devastating consequences on people's daily lives, work and happiness. Aristophanes contrasts the violence and profit of the warmongers with the fertility, love and collective prosperity that peace brings. Despite its seemingly utopian solution, the comedy is not naive: it recognises the resistances, vested interests and inertia that obstruct the restoration of peace.

Η Irene It holds a pivotal position in Aristophanes' overall work as a highly conciliatory and the most optimistic of his political comedies. Despite its strong connection to the era that produced it, the comedy remains timeless because it sheds light on a mechanism that recurs to this day: wars that are prolonged at the expense of the many and for the benefit of the few. The common man's insistence on demanding peace, even against the logic of power, makes the work absolutely relevant in today's world where invasions, violence, threats, insecurity, and cynicism continue to be presented as inevitable.

The Athens and Epidaurus Festival is subsidised by the Ministry of Culture.