A play in three acts by Ilias P. Katsis
Let Mom — Fly to The Moon
On the night of the Wolf Moon, in a derelict ceramic workshop beneath the rubble of the Berlin Wall, a pompous professor of tragedy rehearses Medea with his own family — his mother hanging upside down over a sewage well — until the rehearsal becomes the rite it was imitating.
Read Acts I & II in: English Ελληνικά Deutsch Français Español Italiano Nederlands Svenska Русский
The Play
Berlin, the night of the Wolf Moon. In an abandoned ceramic workshop beneath what is left of the Wall, Bedlam, a professor of Classics, runs the “Medea Studio”, where he rehearses Medea with his own family.
His mother hangs by one foot over a sewage well. His hermaphrodite child Dorian takes dictation, plays every part and slips out back to the soldiers. Dorian’s lover Vlad, a neo-Nazi philology student, keeps barging in. By the time the power fails, Mom is dead.
As the moon climbs, Bedlam’s sister Jett arrives, and so does Bill, the sponsor from the Homeland, with a briefcase of money. The family’s buried history — abandonment, abuse, incest — surfaces through the myths they keep rehearsing: Medea, Oedipus, Jocasta. At the peak of the Wolf Moon the ritual demands one more death, and Dorian, the witness, writes it all down.
On the desk, a stuffed imperial eagle sees everything and never says a word.
Characters
Bedlam
Professor of Classics, head of the Medea Studio. Academic, brittle, pompous — and capable of real cruelty.
Dorian
Young hermaphrodite, creative-writing curator. Swings between baby talk and cold precision. The witness.
Jett
Leading interpreter of ancient drama; Bedlam’s sister, Dorian’s mother. Glamorous, exhausted, ruthless.
Vlad
National Socialist student of Classical Philology, Dorian’s lover. Volatile and physical.
Bill
The sponsor from the Homeland. Money, suit, silver tiepin — and a secret tie to the family.
Mom
Mother of Bedlam and Jett. Hangs upside down over the well. Will she fly?
Read Acts I & II in your language
The first two acts are open to everyone, in nine languages. Act III is sent to theatre professionals on request.
Listen & See
Podcasts, infographics and other material about the play.
Audio overviews and infographics are on their way.
Reviews
Reviews marked Hypothetical are imagined responses, written to suggest how the play might be received. They are not quotations from published criticism.
Hypothetical review
A family rehearses Medea until the rehearsal starts rehearsing them. Out of a ceramic workshop, a sewage well and a stuffed eagle, Katsis builds a chamber where myth, Cold War debris and household cruelty are the same material. The effect is less shock than vertigo: by the time the Wolf Moon peaks, you no longer know whether you are watching a ritual or the confession of one.
Hypothetical review
This is a text written for bodies before voices. A mother hangs upside down for most of the first act; a father in a floral dress loads a silver bullet; a child narrates a killing while it happens. Short, staccato lines leave the actor room to breathe and to strike. A company trained in physical theatre would find a feast here — and a serious test.
Hypothetical review
The eagle never speaks, and that is the play’s argument. Everyone in this house performs — for the tape recorder, for the sponsor, for the agents behind the glass — and only the stuffed bird refuses. The last image belongs to it. “The bird never spoke. The rest was us.” It lands like a verdict on a century.
Development
Theodoros Terzopoulos rehearsed an earlier draft of the play at Attis Theatre, Athens (2017), and asked the author to pare back the profanity of the original text. The play has since been revised and reformatted for the stage. Character voice briefs based on Terzopoulos’s breath/axis method are available from the author.
Content advisory
For mature audiences. On-stage killing (strangulation, a bayonet stabbing), gunshots, nudity, sexual content, incest and child-abuse themes, Nazi symbolism, vomiting, strong language.
The Author
Ilias P. Katsis is a Greek playwright, editor and publisher based in Athens. He founded NetControl, one of Greece’s earliest internet publications (in print 1994–1997), after a long career in advertising and publishing that began in 1971. He has worked with computers for more than forty years.
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