A sui generis showman, a master of masquerades, a contemporary storyteller; whoever has had the chance to witness any of Euripides Laskaridis’ performances might already be familiar with his extravagant way of staging surreal, tragicomic yet deeply humane dance-theatre fables. It is in the heart of this time-honoured custom of telling stories that his benevolent, anthropomorphic creatures are placed. However allegorical and dreamy, their stories become our stories, they have passions and crises, they are moody yet get fixated on stuff, just as we do. Aren’t we all part of a larger story, anyway?
In Lapis Lazuli, Laskaridis’ latest work, fear is put under the kaleidoscope. Laskaridis plays a werewolf – a figure invested with many contrasting readings, psychoanalytically and culturally speaking – has come to tell his side of the story. He’ll sit on the couch for therapy, he’ll gargle a mouthful of pills to control his anger, he’ll undergo a Gestalt test to understand where his deeper fears reside. Once he was object of someone’s nightmares, now he is the one to unravel the mysteries of his soul. With him, the ‘final girl’ – borderline victim and hysterical mistress – incarnated brilliantly by Maria Bregianni, and the typical psycho killer found in slasher movies – Dimitris Matsoukas’ approach infuses the role with many unexplored humorous aspects, as to whether he should exercise his license to kill or fall in love. Spyros Ntogas and Angelos Alafogiannis are malleable, fleetingly present shadow figures, who nonetheless support skilfully this absurd ‘ballet d’action’.
In Lapis Lazuli you’ll come across references from Murnau’s Nosferatu or the kind of handcrafty magical worlds by Georges Méliès and even, sometimes, a fusion of Balkan folklore and ethnic exoticism. In Laskaridis’ universe there are no disparate elements, partly because the playful scenography, the spectacular costumes and the eerie music score are well interwoven to create a visually and aurally abundant, neo-baroque style, in which, like a forgotten Hollywood star, a werewolf seeks comfort and goes to sleep while cuddling with a gigantic pink sea-horse.
Laskaridis is indeed indefatigable, both in style and appearance, yet this performance, mysteriously, reads more as a sequel to his earlier works, and less as a fresh take on uncharted paths.
