Ntouth theater group: a theatrical state of sweet comfort
Vasia Attarian
The notion of group at the performative core
Text: Vassilis Servetas
It was May 2024 when I first got the chance to attend a performance given by the theater group Ntouth, directed by Vaso Attarian and titled Farewell, which was staged at Theater 104, in Gazi, Athens; and I soon as a found out it was three hours long, I must admit a sense of distrust got the best of me. Three hours is a long time to be sitting still, watching something you don’t find pleasing. Nevertheless, any impulse of looking for a getaway evaporated right from the start. Let it be noted that I had a ringside seat, and actors were swirling, spinning and dancing right over my head. We were all taken to a wedding reception, waiting for a couple that never showed up. All my feelings paraded before my eyes in full alignment, I was touched and I laughed my heart out, those three hours swept me away like a rushing river. Once the performance was over, I gave a big hug to my friend to thank her for insisting that I should watch it, and the name Ntouth was inscribed in a corner of my mind.
This spring, the moment I heard that Ntouth was returning on stage, I made a fast-track trip to Athens just for them. Guest Stars, their most recent work, unravels against the backdrop of a New Year’s Eve TV marathon, teeming with songs, audience phone calls and passionate dedications. The play rose up to my high expectations; all year long I was replaying the memories from last year’s experience in my head, as an act of theatrical rumination. As days went by, and what I had witnessed before my eyes started spreading inside of me, gradually taking over the vital space it rightfully deserved, Ι realized being overcome by an overwhelming sense of intimacy, as Ntouth’s work evoked in ways that cannot be put to words all the lives I wished I had lived, while also staying away from any stern boundaries imposed by the conventional theater form.
Vasia Attarian is one of the three members of the Ntouth theater group, alongside Mirto Makridi and Dimitris Tasenas, formed in 2012 and with more than fifteen productions under its belt. This year’s Guest Stars concluded the trilogy that had kicked off in 2023 with the play Nostalgia Generation. The group had initially its eyes set on children’s theater, staging performances at Skrow Theater, the National Theater of Greece and the Athens Concert Hall, before making the transition to teenage-oriented plays and eventually forming its solid identity during the pandemic, when the idea of the trilogy was materialized. “The typical story of the Ntouth theater group can be traced in the credits of each performance and the dozens of our steady partners in crime. Its real story, though, is much more intricate, as it mirrors the very passing of time: let-downs and applications, spending New Year’s Day and summertime together, sleepless nights and drudgery, so much laughter and tons of love. The future has many ideas in store, but first we have to roll up our sleeves and embark on our quest for funding,” comments Vasia Attarian. Behind every phrase of hers, one can detect the pivotal force of team work: “Whatever lies in the future for us, one thing is for sure: we’ll stick together as a team”; Vasia Attarian speaks so warmly for her companions that my phone’s screen is about to go in flames.
Vlassis Bonatsos, Anna Panagiotopoulou and Malvina Karali, Greek TV stars of past times, in their heyday during the 90s, are the key influences behind the three plays, respectively. No wonder, therefore, that my next question revolves around the impact of Greek TV on her directorial work. “It’s definitely a part of me, and of the entire group as well. In the late 90s, watching TV helped me go through a rough patch and keep my head together, and as a result I built this fantasy: that someday I would experience moments of happiness on an imaginary TV set, in the company of beloved faces who would sing, succumb to self-sarcasm, and allow themselves the privilege of being naive. This fantasy finally came true.” It’s certainly a big deal to find a way to cast away your personal demons. It’s also really refreshing to see a group of people who don’t hesitate to confront their past while refraining from the temptation of embellishment. “Every generation glorifies and idolizes its past, at least to a certain extent. However, if we put things into perspective, we can’t help but to admit that no decade was superior to any other. They all had their share of political and social problems. They all had darker and brighter moments, people that pushed art and youthfulness a little forward.” Nevertheless, even if we all acknowledge that there’s no gold metal-winning decade, it’s only natural that each generation hails and crowns the decade of their youth.
The typical story of the Ntouth theater group can be traced in the credits of each performance and the dozens of our steady partners in crime. Its real story, though, is much more intricate, as it mirrors the very passing of time: let-downs and applications, spending New Year’s Day and summertime together, sleepless nights and drudgery, so much laughter and tons of love. The future has many ideas in store, but first we have to roll up our sleeves and embark on our quest for funding.
As long and adventurous her journey in theater may be, Vasia Attarian declares having pledged her heart to cinema: “I was so lucky to have spent a whole ten years with the blitz theater group (Angeliki Papoulia, Christos Passalis, and Giorgos Valais) that taught me to seek inspiration into films. At a moment when theater in Greece seemed to have reached an impasse, I crossed paths with acclaimed film director Syllas Tzoumerkas, who entrusted me with a place in his crew in several film productions despite the fact that I didn’t even know how to tap a clapperboard. Soon afterwards, I got to meet Maria Drandaki, a film producer who provided me with a new definition for the profession of a film producer. By her side I was given the chance to take part in the shooting of the film Animal directed by yet another highly talented filmmaker, Sofia Exarchou.” Vasia points out that through her experience in the field of film production she got familiarized with the practical branch of artistic creation, whereas these acquaintances offered her the courage and inspiration to envision the parts of this theatrical trilogy. All the film industry people with whom she got connected became the living embodiment of a passage from Christos Vakalopoulos, a writer she has passionately loved, from the book New Athenian Stories: “I was asked why I love cinema, and I replied to her that only there you get to understand how people live, and that life should look like an adventure.”
With regard to the director’s role and debt, Vassia dismisses the very label to begin with, but also the idea of a director being assigned with any sort of particular mission or task. “The need to keep up with the here-and-now is strictly personal, as a citizen, and if I do so, the outcome is almost bound to relate to its times, not necessarily in direct fashion, as a fictional construction differs from a journalistic approach. I can guarantee you, though, that the people on stage are utterly connected with the current events and our passions, and that the audience can discern our camouflaged convictions and ideologies, our past and our present, unveiled without a shred of finger-pointing but with a great deal of self-sarcasm.” As for the sense of power that so often goes hand in hand with the director’s seat, she makes sure once again to keep her distance. “I find this to be so dull and petty, so banal and outdated. I go for teamwork, co-creation and credits appearing in alphabetical order.”
Guest Stars speaks about love in a state of lightness, but mostly sings it; actors interpret around 100 different choruses in a nearly three-hour performance. It was as if someone had invited us to the venue just to remind us of all our past crushes and make us dedicate a song to each and every one of them. I asked Vasia to share with me the way she has experienced her own love stories. “The feeling is exhausting,” she replies. “And it may very well become humiliating, harrowing, and selfish. But it keeps the world moving around. It briefly drives away the fear of death, and makes you go back to being 16 years old again. So why not seek it?”. Upon leaving Theater 104 on that night of May, you could visualize all the dedications flying like little prayers right out of the audience’s heads before vanishing into the nocturnal breeze of Athens. And all of them carried their proper precious little stories. Vasia sent out her own dedication to “the ones nested in my heart, the people of the trilogy that taught me to dream of mythical nights, that were there whenever my actual nights crumbled down.” I guess the people that deserve our dedications the most are the ones who will sing them along.
CV
Vasia Attarian was born in Athens in 1989. She graduated from the Department of Theater Studies of the National & Kapodistrian University of Athens, and is a senior at a post-graduate Program in cultural management by the Hellenic Open University.
Her recent artistic work as a member of the Ntouth theater group includes the “grief trilogy” (Nostalgia Generation [2023], Farewell [2024], Guest Stars [2025]), The Visitors I – Parallel Writings (2022) at the Archaeological Museum of Eretria, as part of the “All of Greece, One Culture” Program, The Visitors II – Heat Days, Tropical Nights (2023) at the Ancient Theater of Argos, as part of the “All of Greece, One Culture” Program, The Visitors III – Touristic Polaroids (2023) at Venizelos House, Chania, as part of the cultural program “Open Sales”, and A Thousand and One Tales (2019) at the National Theater of Greece. They had also served as artistic directors of the children’s stage at Skrow Theater for three years (2014-2017), leading to the creation of the plays The Dream Eater (2014), The Missing Piece (2016), and The Nonexistent Knight (2017). They have also been teaching theater to teenagers, having co-produced performances with them at the Onassis Youth Festival (2018, 2019), and at the National Theater Workshops (2020, 2023, 2024).
She has directed or co-directed more than 15 theater performances since 2012. She worked for ten years as an assistant director at the blitz theater group. Along with Serafeim Radis (Lefou Productions) she has served as head of the production team for theater, dance and music performances. She has also designed the lighting for the recent performances by Vasilis Vilaras, as well as for the play Caryatid! written by Giorgos Kapoutzidis and directed by Katerina Mavrogeorgi.
She has also worked in cinema as a production coordinator at Homemade Films, run by Maria Drandaki, in films such as The City and the City (co-directed by Syllas Tzoumerkas and Christos Passalis), Animal (directed by Sofia Exarchou) and To a Land Unknown (directed by Mahdi Fleifel), among others. She is the co-scriptwriter in Syllas Tzoumerkas’ new film My Soul Startled, which is currently at the final financing stage.
She is an Onassis AiR Fellow for the 2024/25 season through Dramaturgy Fellowship.
Photos credits: Alexandra Riba
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