One fearless woman vs. the machinery of greed
A play, a trial, a conversation with our city.
Aurelia, the madwoman of Chaillot, is the embodiment of an unaffected, fey, romantic nature. When she learns that a group of cynical businessmen plans to get rich from the oil that supposedly exists beneath Paris, she enlists the help of friends who, like her, are opposed to the tyranny of money. Her enemies, blinded by greed, stumble into the trap that she sets for them.
The Madwoman of Chaillot is an outdoor theatrical production by the Theatrical Workshop of Preveza and Artifactory — directed by Lili Sakka and followed by a public dialogue facilitated by civic educator Kostis Papaioannou — that brings Giraudoux's visionary play into open public space as an act of collective resistance and democratic imagination.
The Madwoman of Chaillot by Jean Giraudoux
By the Theatrical Workshop of Preveza
Production - Coordination: Artifactory
Production Credits:
Author: Jean Giraudoux
Translation: Yannis Thivaios
Direction – Text Adaptation: Lili Sakka
Movement Direction – Stage Design: Lili Sakka
Costumes: Kostas Lakis
Music Supervision: Kosmas Markis
Music – Song Lyrics: Anna Barkouzou
Poster Designer: Kostas Lakis
Sound – Lighting: Thodoros Tolis – db sounds
Production Coordinator: Georgia Papadiotis
Stage Manager: Elena Tzima
Public Relations: Kostas Pappas
Photography: Pericles Giannoulatos
Coordination - Production manager: Photini Papahatzi
Cast:
Gogo Armyra: Josephine / Journalist
Athena Daskala: Flower Seller
Elli Kakosimou: Baroness / Sewer Worker / Police Officer
Kosmas Markis: President / Ragpicker / Old Man
Vangelio Ballou: Shoelace Seller / Lifeguard
Anna Barkouzou: Gabrielle
Ioanna Bobori: Constance
Anda Nika: Aurélie, the Madwoman of Chaillot
Lina Pantazi: Irma
Spyros Papadiotis: Prospector
Kostas Pappas: Pierre
All: The Ensemble
Civic Dialogue
Following the performance, a structured public dialogue will be facilitated by Kostis Papaioannou, educator, director of “SIGNAL, researching and fighting the Far Right" and President of Technopolis, Municipality of Athens, with extensive experience in participatory methodologies and community engagement. Drawing directly on the dramatic logic of the play, the dialogue will transform the audience from spectators into active participants.
The session will be structured around the play's own central device, Aurélie's informal people's tribunal, inviting participants to put contemporary figures and systems on trial: extractive corporations, greenwashing, the creeping erosion of democratic norms. The audience becomes the jury.
The conversation will unfold through three questions drawn from the play itself:
Who are today's Presidents, Barons, and Prospectors?
What does resistance look like without institutional power?
When does "madness" become a political act?
To deepen the dialogue, voices from the local community will be invited to speak as contemporary Aurélie figures: people dismissed as "mad" precisely because they refuse to accept a world governed by greed and conformity.
The dialogue aftert the performance is a continuation of the play, making civic imagination a collective, public act.
Photos from the rehearsals - that started November 2024 -in the theatre of the Theatrical Workshop of Preveza
photo: Pericles Giannoulatos
"These are our true enemies, Baron! We must empty Paris of all of them - all those who are different in colour, in height, in shape! What is the only guarantee, the only condition for a modern world? One uniform type of worker, with identical features, identical clothes, identical gestures and words. So that those who govern will see only one human species sweating and labouring. Our power expires wherever joyful poverty survives, wherever scornful and critical servants survive, wherever beloved and revered madness survives."
The President
"According to the laws of the market, we reward honest men with the honours they deserve - making honesty as dangerous to life as crime itself. This is an axiom of exploration: next to the oil, there is always a corpse."
The Prospector
KOSTIS PAPPAIOANOY is a regular collaborator of Artifactory.
He studied History and completed postgraduate studies in Political Science. He teaches at the Hellenic-French School of Agia Paraskevi. He directs the Center for the Study and Counteraction of the Far Right.
He is President of Technopolis, Municipality of Athens.
He served as Secretary General of Transparency and Human Rights of the Ministry of Justice 2015-2016. From 2006 to 2015 he was elected President of the National Commission for Human Rights. He served as President of the Greek section of Amnesty International 1996-2003 and member of the Board of Directors of the Hellenic Union for Human and Citizen Rights.
He pioneered the establishment of the Network for Recording Incidents of Racist Violence. He participates in the Observatory in the Golden Dawn trial.
His books are in circulation: "A Wild Story for Big Kids, From Fascism to Post-Fascism, Democracy Against the New Far Right" published by Polis, and "The Clean Hands of Golden Dawn: Exercises in Nazi Purity" published by Metaichmio.
Theatrical Workshop of Preveza
The Theatrical Workshop of Preveza (T.W.P.) is a non-profit cultural association founded in Preveza in 1998. Over its 28 years of activity, it has become one of the city's most enduring cultural reference points — staging 18 productions under the direction of Lili Sakka, hosting approximately 80 guest productions, and organising theatre seminars for children and adults with distinguished Greek theatre professionals.
The company has built two theatre spaces entirely through its own resources. Its current home — a 93-seat theatre with a foyer, dressing rooms, and storage — was carved out of an abandoned military barracks at the Castle of Agios Andreas, where the company has been squatting since 2007, occupying a derelict building and transforming it into a working cultural space through the collective labour and personal expense of its members and supporters.
T.W.P.'s work is rooted in the local landscape and community: productions have toured villages across Epirus and beyond, been staged at ancient sites including the Roman Odeon of Nicopolis and the ancient theatre of Kassopi, and engaged with themes of local history, displacement, memory, and social critique. Its most recent production, Lebensraum by Thanasis Triaridis (Spring 2025), was created in collaboration with Artifactory as part of the EU-funded Visible Past project.
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THE MADWOMAN OF CHAILLOT
by Jean Giraudoux
A production by the Theatrical Workshop of Preveza & Artifactory
Courtyard of the Centre for Environmental Interpretation and Interactive Digital Information of Preveza, Vryssoula–Margarona Coastal Road, Preveza
4 & 5 July 2026 | 8:30 pm
Discussion before and after the play with Kostis Papaioannou