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| World’s End for Every Break-up. |
| Metropolispress 11/11/201, by Argyro Bozoni |
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 A woman is packing her stuff and leaving her lover. He is trying to stand on his own feet, devastated. These happen at @Rouf, in the play World's End. We talked to Paul Sellar, writer of the play, and he explained to us why love is always at the center of human relationships.
A man alone. This is the first image of Paul Sellar's play, World's End, which was staged the previous week at @Rouf Theatre (Konstantinoupoleos 10 & Andronikou). A new theatre is born with this show, urban-theatr, in the heart of the city, and a young director Ilias Panagiotakopoulos, presents his first direction of a play which unfolds in 75 minutes, in real time, and describes the conflict of four people in their relationships and every day life. Which is their story?
A man woke up one morning to find that his companion had deserted him without an explanation. He may never receive this explanation, even when they meet at their house where she comes back to act the most edgeless and sad part of the end of a love story. To pack her stuff. At the end of the play we find the writer at the foyer.
You selected a man who is being deserted as a protagonist of your play.
The story of a man who is left behind interested me a lot when I was writing the play. I felt that Kat could easily get over Ben, because Ben refused to grow up and take any real responsibility for himself and his life.
Do you really think that women are more realistic or cruel than men?
I think that women believe in a man, and when he lets them down in some way, they express themselves by leaving. Of course this can happen the other way round too. The approach of a man being deserted seems to me fresher.
On stage the two ex lovers become rivals upon their meeting. There is a new man in Kat's life, and confusion for his next steps in Ben's life. The heroin's friend is also there, and she might be Ben's next love…..
Do you believe that each break-up is a small death?
Yes, if the emotions are real, the separation is painful for both, but mostly for the one who is left behind. There are many processes which take place after the end of a relationship before the roads of the couple are truly separated.
Observing the people sitting next to me during the play, I see once more that the modern plays on relationships are interesting and timely. The simple scenes of a familiar everyday life meet the audience's need to communicate with a foreign story, but also so familiar, with a familiar situation in which they will find a part of themselves. Ben's questions for the next lover, full of curiosity and jealousy, the suggestion of injustice, the tension between the attraction, the familiarity and the conflict, reveal a known but strange, being part of a theatrical plot, code.
Why do you think that the audience prefers love stories?
I think because we are humans; we want to tell and listen to stories about us. About how we feel, and how we think. Love is after all in the center of human experience. Everything else is peripheral. Of course we have to survive and we can't focus only on love, but nothing exists without love. I don't mean only romantic love. I mean love in its wider sense: pity, understanding and feelings for us and others.
After 75 minutes the heroes have taken their own paths. The have made or postponed their decisions for the next day, but they have made a step, they have defended their beliefs and emotions, they have changed, even if they decide to carry on together, even if they decide to close this chapter of their life. Sellar's heroes grow up on stage, after they are exposed against their worst enemy-themselves…
What do you think of the greek show?
I think that it is one of the best. I was impressed by the production, the actors and the way that the director approached it. I did enjoy the greek version and while I was watching I was moved, like I was discovering a new perspective of my story.
We go out at Gazi in the stir of the Saturday evening. “All of us have thought at some point that a break-up is the end of the world”, D. says. And thus we carried on….talking about loves which are like the end of the world. Having a good time once again! |
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