The Greek Play Project | Two Oranges for Christmas

Playwright: Konstantinos Markellos

The playwright and his collaborators travelled to Bucharest to record testimonies from people who experienced the deprivation, fear, insecurity and censorship of the Ceaușescu regime. Their powerful accounts became the foundation for a play that moves between historical documentary and fiction. Vlad, who was shot during the unrest that followed the dictator’s overthrow, still lives with two bullets lodged in his body and has a story to tell. Lucian, with his enigmatic, guilt-ridden past, runs a publishing house and seeks testimonies from people who lived on the margins of history and “imagined the revolution”. Andria, who has just lost her mother, searches for answers both as a political scientist and as a daughter. She dares to open the secret service file on her parents and confronts truths that will shake everything she has taken for granted. With caustic humour and unrelenting suspense, the lives of the three characters intersect through a series of revelations and reversals. They soon realise that the tragic consequences of politics for private and public life, together with inherited guilt, prevent them from living harmoniously in a society that wishes to call itself “free”, yet still bears the open wounds of its past, both individual and collective. Translated into Romanian by Angela Bratsou; publication forthcoming. Două portocale de Crăciun, 2025.