In Hell I’ll Be In Good Company

The National Theatre of Northern Greece presents the political comedy of Spanish playwrights Ignacio del Moral and Ernesto Caballero, The Banker Always Wins Twice, a belated catharsis on the Mediterranean economic crisis that scourged both Greece and Spain alike, thus bringing to Thessaloniki’s audience the palliative illusion of companionship in despair, together with some witty turns of phrase.

 

 

Marge and Bart, having been laid off and suffering the consequences of the economic crisis in their lives, are led to a desperate act: the kidnapping of the country’s biggest banker. Despite their efforts to send a loud political message through this act, the events themselves take them over. Ultimately, it turns out that anyone and everything is consumable, since that the system can replace and replenish everything at a tremendous speed.

The play The Banker Always Wins Twice is a political comedy that captures the bewilderment of people in front of a strong financial system, as well as their difficulty in turning rage into meaningful political action.

Ignacio del Moral and Ernesto Caballero, two important representatives of the modern Spanish theatre who know how to read the news and listen to the pulse of the time, collectively write a work that comically highlights political opposition and, at the same time, approaches human beings and their weaknesses with love.

As Greek director Dimitris Sakatzis purports: «Greece’s crisis is not significantly different from Spain’s. Anyway, it’s two countries with their own peculiar explosive temperament, who plunged at the same time into a deeply rooted crisis and were called upon to cope with adversity in order to get out of it. So, a work of the Spanish present can certainly reflect Greece today. And this could not be done except through a comedy. The human tendency to impart to the most dramatic situations experienced a comedic tone is innate and original. As well as humor is, when it comes to dealing with the “hard times”. A comedy, then, and a dark one, as only this would most effectively affect the socio-economic present and convey it in its own way to the audience. Through this work of crisis, the dowry that the latter left us is highlighted, too. Thus, the prevalence of money as a model of value, as Yasmine tells us in her disarming sincere naivety at “they have forgotten the ideals here, they all look at themselves, they only think of the money”, co-exists with those empowered through the crisis – neighbourhood and family institutions, friendship and companionship. And the people keep spinning round and round hoping for the best».

At the same time, the Spanish playwrights, who were present at the premiere on 1st February 2020 at Melina Mercouri’s Municipal Theatre of Kalamaria, said:

«We Spanish don’t have that many things to tell the Greeks about the Crisis that they don’t already know. Both countries and both peoples underwent (and are still trying to recover from) a harsh ordeal which confirmed (yet again) that taking care of the ordinary people doesn’t figure among the priorities of governments or large corporations. It’s no surprise that the Crisis has left a lot of poor people in its wake in Spain. What is surprising, though, is that it has also made a significant number of people rich. Which is to say it has boosted both extremes, increasing inequality, desperation, social abuse and the inequality gap in a society which had been relatively balanced until then. Those suffocated by unemployment and the loss of the value of their labour serve to remind us once again that the only way to face up to disaster is for the weak to join forces. Not against the powerful any longer (which wouldn’t be a bad thing), but with each other, to deal with adversity together. Our Greek and Spanish communities have shown themselves capable of empathy and cooperation as families and neighbours have had to fill the gap left by states and governments incapable of rising to the occasion. This is what this play, which was written in the darkest days of the Crisis by two playwrights who found themselves on the street, is all about. They saw what they saw, heard what they heard, and decided to put everything their fellow citizens were suffering onto the stage. With humour, but with anger too».

 

The show is still playing
Lazaristes Monsatery – Sokratis Karantinos Stage
From 6th March to 12th April 2020
Wednesday at 18.00
Thursday, Friday, Saturday at 21.00
Sunday at 19.00

The National Theatre of Northern Greece presents
The banker always wins twice
by Ignacio del Moral − Ernesto Caballero

translation Maria Chatziemmanouil
direction Dimitris Sakatzis
sets-costumes Maria Kavalioti
music Dimitris Oikonomou
lighting Giannis Toumpas
video Vasilis Kommatas
director’s assistant Christoforos Mariadis
production photography Tasos Thomoglou
production coordinators Maria Lazaridou, Marleen Verschuuren
cast Natasa Daliaka, Konstantinos Chatzisavvas, Kostas Santas, Eleni Giannousi, Christos Ntaraktsis

co-operation with the Municipality of Kalamaria