Stories to keep you awake at night

Stories to keep you awake at night

Based on the works of Noel Greig

From 06.05.2023

REX THEATRE - STAGE "ELENI PAPADAKI"

This spring at the NTG youth stage, the fairy tales that we all grew up with have grown up themselves, returning to haunt us – or perhaps to save us – with their terrible and relentless honesty. The fables that once lulled us asleep have been rewritten. And this time, we wonΆt sleep a wink. In Stories to keep you awake at night, directed by Thanos Tokakis, three of Noel GreigΆs most enchanting works (Tin Soldier, Hood in the Wood and Tasty Tale) are interwoven with the questions, dreams and nightmares of young people today. The show premieres for schools on 25 April and for the general public on 2 May.

The major British writer, who believed that theatre should address itself to younger audiences to have a real impact on peopleΆs lives and society, uses the adventures of Little Red Riding Hood, The Tin Soldier, and Hansel and Gretel to wake us and shake us. With humour, daring and sensitivity, the production tackles topics such as the marginalisation of difference and the oppression of sexuality and any form of freedom, as well as violence, abuse, and our culture of overconsumption, while also celebrating courage, resilience and hope, the search for authenticity, and female emancipation.

“With adult knowledge of the psychoanalytical implications of fairy tales, Noel Gregg rewrites our memories,” explains the director, who leads his cast through a frenetic collective narrative that often becomes highly personal and breaks out spontaneously into song, into lamentation, into wild laughter, and even into a whisper. The productionΆs twelve actors share a nuanced and eloquent physicality that allows them to transform from one moment to the next into a bustling forest or ramshackle toys, to move as one person, or to glide silently like eerie shadows on the wall. The dynamic ensemble of role-changing actors interacts with the live music and the audience, inviting us all to enter together into the deep, dark forest of our childhood fairy tales, searching for all their hidden truths about the cruelty of the world, but also about what it means to be young in it.