Aristophanes’ comedy The Wasps, a play rarely performed in Greece, is being staged by the NTG – for the fir for the first time since Alexis Solomos directed it sixty years ago  – in a modern version directed by Lena Kitsopoulou. The maverick Kitsopoulou, who has freely adapted the play, heads up a superb team of creatives and actors in her first production at Epidaurus, taking on a work that reflects on the ills of our democracy and the cracks in our system of justice.   

In The Wasps, as so often, Aristophanes uses comedy as a means of satirising a deeply political issue with unsurpassed acuity: on this occasion the erosion of the judicial system, which was the cornerstone of popular sovereignty in ancient Athens. At the centre of the play is a spiteful old volunteer juror who loves nothing better than a trial – especially one that results in a conviction. His son, on the other hand, despairs at the crumbling stipend-based court system, while the chorus of sharply stinging ‘wasps’, whose insatiable appetite for censure betrays no inclination towards self-criticism, represents a society trapped in a suffocating cocoon of discord and malice, twisting and squirming as it unleashes volleys of invective and ends up feeding on its own poison.

In this version, Lena Kitsopoulou examines the modern ‘wasps’ who sit in the court of popular opinion on television and social media. With acerbic wit and parodic flair, she illuminates the systemic rot and slumbering defences that characterise society today, with all its bigotry, fanaticism, and rigid political correctness. The director sums up this attitude as follows: “I condemn you on my TV show, on my mobile phone, and in public, no matter where I am and no matter where I go. And take good note of this: whoever doesn’t agree with me is a fascist and is guilty by association. My accusations define me. I accuse therefore I am!” This production brilliantly shows us both the mire that we risk sinking into, and its reverse, the ideal to which we should aspire.