- Silence,
- 2016
Playwright: Tania Charokopou
- Things are going badly in Kleio’s household. She struggles to survive on a pension. Her sister, Ismini, disillusioned with life, has become dependent on alcohol and increasingly erratic, while her son, Aris, an unemployed scientist, is experiencing the full impact of the economic crisis. Their problems have brought the family to its knees, but Kleio, sustained by her faith and optimism, does everything she can to keep them together. At a bar, Aris meets Tatiana, a Bosnian woman who does everything in her power to make him fall in love with her and marry her so that she can obtain Greek citizenship. Tatiana’s first meeting with Kleio is fraught with tension. Kleio struggles to cope with both her son’s decisions and her sister’s addiction. Eventually, Aris and Tatiana secretly enter into a civil partnership. As if the family’s troubles were not enough, they discover that Aris has an autoimmune disease that progressively paralyses his muscles. Before long, he will be unable to care for himself and will need a wheelchair. Kleio looks after him, while Ismini resents him, fearing that his condition will cause her own needs to be neglected. Tatiana blackmails Kleio, claiming that she is pregnant with Aris’s child and demanding money for an abortion and a divorce. Realising that her son’s life is nearing its end, Kleio sells a small plot of land and pays Tatiana—but on the condition that she carries the pregnancy to term, hands the baby over to her and leaves Greece for good. A month before Tatiana gives birth to Aris’s son, with everything ready for her grandson’s arrival, Kleio sends her sister to a rehabilitation clinic. Unable to bear seeing her son in such a devastating condition, she places a pillow over his face. After a heartrending monologue addressed to her child, she sings him a lament. She then calls the doctor, tells him the truth and leaves him to decide what to record as the cause of death…