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Waiting  (Onassis Stegi, Athens, 21 April 2024,  © Mehmet Kerem Ozel ) In November 2019, I saw the world premiere of Euripides Laskaridis' Elenit by coincidence; I was in Athens for the last performances of Dimitris Papaioannou's The Great Tamer tour, I had an evening free, I gave Elenit a chance at Onassis Stegi, I did not regret it. I enjoyed Elenit , I laughed, I had fun, I especially admired the grotesque and ridiculous character of Marie Antoinette versus Madonna, played by Laskaridis himself. At that time, I wrote an impression article about the piece here .  In November 2022 Laskaridis was a guest at the Istanbul Theatre Festival with Titans , the second part of his trilogy of which Elenit is the last.  On a rainy evening when Laskaridis first arrived in Istanbul, he took the metro from Mecidiyeköy to Tepebaşı and met Ayşe Draz, my friend Emre and me at the Georgian restaurant Fıccın, where we had dinner and thus met face to face.  I found Titans , whi...

[The Turkish translation of this interview is published and can be accessed on  art.unlimited .] Dimitris Papaioannou- Portrait (Photo: Julian Mommert) On the first Sunday morning of December in a sunny and warm weather, we meet with the painter, director and visual artist Dimitris Papaioannou in a cute café in Pangrati, one of Athens’ bohemian and green neighborhoods. Dressed in a black tracksuit Papaioannou is in an emotional and sad mood. Following its 2.5-year-long world tour in 38 cities of 23 countries with more than 70,000 spectators, his last work The Great Tamer was performed for the last time on two previous sold-out evenings (29-30 November 2019) at the Megaron, Athens' largest theater of 1750 people. When I ask him about how he feels, Papaioannou describes the final performance of The Great Tamer as “ the funeral, the funeral of the show ” and adds: “ I very much like the fact that we closed The Great Tamer , we finished it, but I’m also very emotional about th...