- by the lake,
- 2025
- 4 male - 3 female [minimum number of actors: 1]
Playwright: Katerina Louvari Fasoi
- As its title suggests, By the Lake unfolds beside a lake. There, the ruler of the land is at last living out his pure love for his young beloved. His companions and his men, however, are growing increasingly concerned: their leader has eyes and ears for no one but her, while their enemies are drawing ever closer, and nothing will stop them should they fall into their hands. Despite their attempts to persuade him otherwise, the ruler, wholly consumed by this unfamiliar passion, refuses to take action. Then, completely unexpectedly, the young woman dies as she steps into the garden to pick a flower — a deep-red flower that has appeared in this land for the very first time. Her faithful servant brings the dreadful news and tries to console him. The ruler spends entire days and nights beside her dead body as a testament to his eternal devotion and love. He refuses to part with her, even in death, and will not allow her to be buried deep in the earth, despite the efforts of the land’s religious authority, the Bishop. Everything changes when the Bishop, while blessing the unfortunate woman so that her soul may rest in eternal peace, opens her mouth and discovers a ring. The ring is destined to enchant the ruler so completely that, even when the Bishop wears it, he can no longer contain his feelings or his passion. He constantly longs to be near him and to profess his eternal devotion and fidelity, entirely forgetting both his dead beloved and his responsibilities as ruler of the land. Meanwhile, the enemies are drawing ever closer. They have already slaughtered many of his subjects and defiled the land with their sacrilegious deeds. Seeking to escape both their bloodstained hands and the ruler’s obsessive love, which has overwhelmed his heart and mind, the Bishop hurls the ring into the lake with all his strength. From that moment on, the ruler does nothing but gaze at the lake with a gentle, conscious love — the love of sweet melancholy that comes to those approaching the end of their lives. He is spared by his enemies when they see him eating the poisonous flower, the very flower that killed his young beloved. Believing that he will die slowly and painfully, they leave him to his fate. But he does not die. He bends his body towards the lake, towards that still expanse of water, and suddenly, in a transformation at once dreamlike and metaphysical, he becomes a poplar tree by the lakeside. There he will live forever beside his beloved, each offering the other eternal bliss.