A Thousand Hands (Chilia Cheria in Greek) are about to premiere in Nicosia as a new theatrical performance by Stella Voskaridou comes to the Cyprus Theatre Organisation stage. Directed by Fotis Nikolaou, the performance is a production of Thok’s Experimental Stage, and it lifts the curtain on Saturday March 7.
The play plunges into the innermost depths of the soul of the great modern Greek sculptor Yannoulis Chalepas, tracing his artistic journey as a constant oscillation between light and darkness.
His life, marked by mental illness, confinement in a psychiatric institution, a long withdrawal from art, as well as a difficult relationship with his family and teachers, becomes the starting point for a journey into the world of this brilliant artist, where trauma, desire, weakness and passion are transformed into raw material, and creation becomes not only a counterweight to existential anguish but also a saving remedy.
At the centre of the play’s dramaturgy lies the archetypal condition of the artist: the need to create, even when everything around them operates as a mechanism of negation. Time, the mind, madness and death are treated not merely as thematic references but as forces that shape the creator’s very existence and the field of their inspiration.
Nikolaou approaches A Thousand Hands as a staged confrontation of the creator with his own self. The stage transforms into a space of matter and memory, where clay and mask become body, imprint, wound and prayer. The boundaries between creator and creation blur. Inspiration resembles a curse, and art a final gesture of resistance against decay.
The performances will continue throughout March, with the penultimate one on March 28 including surtitles in English and Turkish to welcome non-Greek speakers to the theatre.
A Thousand Hands
Play by Stella Voskaridou, directed by Fotis Nikolaou. A production of the Experimental Stage of the Cyprus Theatre Organisation. March 7-8, 13-15, 18-19, 21-22, 26, 28,29. In Greek, with English and Turkish surtitles on March 28. New Stage Nikos Charalambous, CTO, Nicosia. €15. Tel: 7777-2717. www.thoc.org.cy
