This is an accepted manuscript of an article published by Intellect in Journal of Greek Media and Culture, available online at https://doi.org/10.1386/jgmc.3.2.195_1. It is not the copy of record. Copyright © 2017, Intellect. 1 Τι είν’ η πατρίδα μας; Performing ‘time out of joint’ at the National Theatre of Greece (2011-13) ‘We are going to open the chapter “Greece”. Our aim is to talk exclusively about our country.’ 1 (Anon 2011) With these words, in May 2011, the artistic director of the National Theatre of Greece Yiannis Houvardas launched the theatre’s programme for the autumn 2011 - spring 2013 period. The season under the title What is our motherland? (Τι ειν’ η πατρίδα μας;) featured works by Greek and non-Greek artists that focused on three areas: Greeks’ perceptions of themselves, non-Greeks’ views of the country and its people, and what Greece might signify in that particular historical moment. The What is our Motherland? Season that concluded Houvardas’s six-year tenure, included different kinds of events: performances, talks, rehearsed readings and exhibitions, they all offered a synchronic and diachronic perspective on the Greek nation. 2 This article explores three performances of Greek plays that were programmed as part of that season: Lena Kitsopoulou’s Austras or Couch Grass (Άουστρας ή η Αγριαδα [2011]); Iakovos Kampanellis’s The Backyard of Miracles (Αυλή των Θαυμάτων, [1957/58]), and Spyridon Peresiadis’s Golfo (Γκόλφω, [1893/94]). These three texts offer insight into the performance of Greek national identity in markedly different historical moments: the pastoral drama Golfo was originally staged 1 All translations from Greek material are mine. The analysis is based on my experience as audience member of The Backyard of Miracles (February 2012) and Golfo (Epidaurus theatre, August 2013) as well as on the video recordings of the productions held at the library of the National Theatre in Athens; the reading of Austras is solely based on the video recording, the unpublished playscript and other documentation material available at the National Theatre library. 2 The repertoire included a version of Homer’s Odyssey directed by Robert Wilson; Shakespeare’s Pericles that was subsequently performed at the Globe Theatre as part of the 2012 Globe to Globe Season in London’s theatre; a play loosely inspired by the persecution of the Greek communities living in Asia Minor by the newly formed Turkish army in 1922 ; a new Greek play called Πατρίδες (Homelands) that engaged with questions of immigration and a series of canonical texts by Eugene O’Neill, Tennessee Williams, Heinrich von Kleist and Molière. The season, curated by artists and theatre scholars, also included readings and lectures on topics such as the Peloponnesian war, Thucydides’s history and other topics about ancient and modern Greece. brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk provided by Winchester Research Repository