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THE LAMB

by Theodoros Tsapakidis

An existential thriller
by BLANDA theatre company

“I was the only stranger.”
TSAPAKIDIS, “THE LAMB”

One night in the life of a couple. The man kills a burglar and attempts to dispose of the body. The couple must deal not only with a crime, but also with their own relationship. As the night unfolds, the attempt to manage the crime turns into a confrontation – until an unexpected twist changes everything we thought we knew.

At a time when violence, manipulation and the refusal to take responsibility often permeate both public and private life, Theodoros Tsapakidis’ “The Lamb” turns our gaze towards an intimate space: the relationship between two people.

In the play, violence is not limited to the act of murder. It seeps into intimacy, corrodes love and turns communication into a field of conflict and manipulation. Tenderness coexists with psychological and physical violence, directed not only at the person closest to us but also at the self, as a means of self-punishment.

Within a metaphysical atmosphere poised between the real and the otherworldly, the play follows a man’s journey towards the realization of a painful truth. A sense of the uncanny, the disjointed, the perverse and even madness follows him at every step. And the woman seems to accompany him on an extreme journey leading to the revelation of a truth he himself is unable to face.

The dramaturgical structure resembles a musical fugue: the attempt to dispose of the body is repeated in variations, while the physical relationship between the two characters, the explosive language and the victim/body’s constant presence on stage sketch out a hidden universe of frustration and alienation. As the night progresses, the protagonist’s certainties – and with them those of the audience – begin to unravel.

Who, in the end, is dead and who is alive? When does communication become a weapon? What “murder” is being committed – and who is the victim? Is there catharsis? Violence, like a whirlwind, levels everything in its path.

In “The Lamb”, what we see unfolding on stage, together with what remains unseen, forms an existential thriller that sustains the tension until the very last minute, as we slip into the treacherous mirror of an image of the “real” that continually eludes us.

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With the financial support of the Ministry of Culture.

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November 2026: 14, 15, 21, 22, 28, 29/11

December 2026: 5, 6, 26, 27/12

January 2027: 2, 3, 9, 10/1

Two additional performances will take place in December Monday and Tuesday, 14 & 15/12 (20:30).

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Duration: 80 minutes
Suitable for: 16+
*The performance contains scenes of violence, strong language and sexual content

THE KILLER

by Mitsos Efthymiadis

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Who is the real killer?
The one holding the gun, or the one who learned to remain silent?

Some crimes end the moment they are committed.
Others continue to live on in memory, within families, in silences and in guilt.

This is the world illuminated by The Killer, the important contemporary Greek play by Mitsos Efthymiadis, directed by Dimitris Bitos and premiering on 13 November.

In a Greece that still carries its own wounds, the play acquires an unexpected relevance. Through four authentic theatrical characters and exemplary dramaturgical structure, Efthymiadis creates a psychological drama that speaks with striking clarity about violence, silence, family, guilt and responsibility, proving that some plays are written long before their time has come.

After years in prison, Savvas returns to the world he left behind, carrying the burden of a crime that has defined his life. His sister’s home becomes the setting for an unexpected encounter with people inextricably bound to his past. As the hours pass, old silences are broken, deeply buried secrets rise to the surface, and relationships built on fear, guilt and betrayal are pushed to their limits. The search for truth becomes a relentless psychological confrontation, in which every revelation overturns previously held certainties and forces the characters to confront not only what they have done, but also what they have chosen to remain silent about.

In The Killer, the crime is only the starting point. The real stakes lie in the social and human conditions that give rise to violence, shape consciousness and trap people in a vicious cycle of fear, silence and an inability to truly look one another in the eye. The characters are neither innocent nor guilty; they are deeply wounded people, trapped by their choices and by the circumstances that shaped them.

Director Dimitris Bitos approaches the play as a story that speaks directly to the present, placing the characters within a contemporary social context and bringing out the enduring power of the text.
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Director’s Note

“This is a contemporary Greek play, one of the few with such a strong structure and theatricality that allows us to bring it into the present and place its characters within a current context, shaped by the circumstances and issues of today, in a Greece that still lives with its wounds. Mitsos Efthymiadis’ four protagonists are four authentic theatrical characters who, within 90 minutes, touch upon the enormous problems facing our country today. Memories do not simply remain alive; they intensify, boil over and, at some point, explode. And from within that explosion emerges a great theatrical work that gives us the opportunity to read the present in multiple ways.”

— D. Bitos

MENGELE
by Thanasis Triaridis
directed by Vana Pefani
Returning to PLYFA for the 2nd time before Zurich

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Following the success of the production at PLYFA in October 2025 and its presentation in Zurich in January 2026 at Bühne S – Theater im Bahnhof Stadelhofen, where it will return in January 2027, “Mengele” returns to Athens.

The play by Thanasis Triaridis, directed by Vana Pefani, returns to PLYFA for 7 exclusive performances, from 8 to 17 October.

A gripping psychological thriller, filled with unexpected twists and chilling reflections on human nature, starring Giorgos Nasios and Eva Piadi, with live music and sound textures by Orestis.

From 8 October, and for seven performances only (8, 9, 10, 11, 15, 16 and 17 October), Athens audiences will have the opportunity to experience this unique production once again.

Vana Pefani creates an immersive theatrical experience inspired by real psychological experiments. The theatre becomes a laboratory, where the audience is invited to choose: will they take the position of the experimental subject or that of the researcher? This is not simply a performance, but an experience that demands active participation.

“Mengele”, a landmark work in Thanasis Triaridis’ dramatic writing, was written in 2012 and, over the course of a decade, has been presented at more than 15 different venues in Athens, in other cities across Greece, and in Cyprus. It is a text that attempts to confront one of the most unimaginable horrors of modern history: Josef Mengele’s infamous experimental laboratory at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Today, at a time when the boundaries of human violence and morality are once again being tested, the play comes to shake us and remind us of the words of Italian-Jewish writer and Holocaust survivor Primo Levi: “What has happened once is certain to happen again.”

A few words about the story:

On a night journey aboard an electric train, an administrative employee and a PhD candidate in History — two complete strangers — find themselves sharing the same compartment. A sudden power outage leads them into a childhood role-playing game: he becomes the infamous “Angel of Death,” Josef Mengele, while she becomes Esther, the granddaughter of a Jewish survivor of his experiments.

But the game soon crosses the line. Are the two “players” merely acting, or are they revealing a terrifying truth? How far can they go when they play with History, morality, and human nature itself?

The Playwright’s Note:

For twelve years now, with every new production of this play, I have been confronted with the same question: “But why do you write about Mengele?” And I always give the same answer: “Because he existed — therefore, he can exist again at any moment. I write about Mengele because I want to demonstrate that the horror of the Holocaust is constantly present. Evil does not come from the heavens, nor from the depths of some nonexistent Hell. Evil is within us — and it takes an ethical struggle and cultural vigilance to ensure that we are not the ones who put people on trains bound for another Auschwitz.”

And I want to say something else. All my life I have written about the massacred civilians who are wiped out in the death laboratories of various forms of power. In my mind, Mengele’s twins stand alongside the enslaved children of all centuries, the children of massacred Indigenous peoples of the New Worlds, the mutilated victims of the Congo, the children being killed in Gaza, and the countless children of our world who die — or, more precisely, are killed — in Sub-Saharan Africa from hunger, poverty and deprivation. They belong to the great community of those unjustly slaughtered throughout History, to whom I feel I am accountable.

— Thanasis Triaridis

The Director’s Note:

“Mengele” is not a performance. It is an in-between space. A bardo of violence. Not the great, historical kind. The small kind. The silent kind. The individual kind. The everyday kind. The kind that has no screams, only whispers. That does not spill blood, but slowly corrodes.

The play’s two protagonists do not know whether they are still inside the experiment or outside it. They do not know whether they are perpetrators or victims. Perhaps neither do we.

Perhaps they are not people at all, but questions in human form. A light that comes on. A light that goes out. And a society watching — with nervous laughter? With indifference? Perhaps with horror? — an experiment that never ends.

The play is being staged now because we live in a world where words such as morality, conscience and responsibility are gritting their teeth. Because darkness is here — and it does not ask for answers, only that we acknowledge its existence. That we see it. And perhaps that is the most difficult thing of all.

— Vana Pefani

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Duration: 80 minutes
Age recommendation: 16+

GEESE
2nd year

Stella Zafeiropoulou

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Following a successful debut, “Geese” returns to PLYFA for a second year.
This season, Maria Antoulinaki takes on the role of Kyriaki.

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In a small provincial town, nothing stays hidden for long. Sofia is a young woman adopted by Kyriaki. Her ancestry constantly become a source of conflict between them, while the comments and interference of those around them further destabilize their fragile balance. As Kyriaki secretly struggles with questions surrounding the management of her property and her inheritance, Sofia experiences love and believes she has finally found happiness. However, the revelations that follow will overturn everything, leading them toward unpredictable and tragic developments.

Geese, the award-winning play by Stella Zafeiropoulou (Greek Screenwriters’ Union Award, 2017), is presented for the second time on stage at PLYFA Theatre from November 18, 2026. It is a story that dares to confront deeply rooted prejudices about parenthood, biological lineage, fear of the foreign and the different, the difficulty of integrating it into our culture — as well as an insatiable love of money.

Stella Zafeiropoulou, one of the most dynamic representatives of the new generation of Greek playwrights, who was recently nominated for the “Karolos Koun” Award for Greek dramaturgy for her play Fly (2025, Olvio Theatre), directs the play herself this time. Presenting her first directorial work on the Greek theatrical stage, she notes about Geese:

Geese is a story of selection. Of children in institutions, of the children who were chosen and those who stayed behind. But there’s more than that. It is also the story of a mother and daughter who never truly saw one another as such, as well as the ongoing narrative of a segment of people who make up small communities and who hypocritically and quite unorthodoxly preserve the old roots of these societies in barren soil when it comes to welcoming the foreigner into their “ancestral lands.” I consider it important that my works originate from real events and engage with a reality that I construct using theatrical terms. The same applies here:  Geese is based on a story that came to me and served as a starting point for creating images. This is also what I want to do with my direction — to highlight the images of the text, and why not, to create new ones. And as time passes and I study Geese from the outside, no longer as their creator, I increasingly feel my detachment from the text and my connection to it under different terms. What I know for certain, however, is that whether in one way (as a writer) or another (as a director), what I need to do is place it on tracks along which it can move smoothly and without obstruction.

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Duration: 100 minutes, no intermission

*Exceptionally, during the second week of December, performances will take place on Monday and Tuesday, December 7 & 8, 2026.