Hailed by the Guardian as ‘a rising star who represents the new face of Greek theatre’, actor, playwright, and director Mario Banushi will be joining us on the stage of the Taylor Institution Main Hall on Monday 13 May, at 5pm.
Still in his early twenties, Mario Banushi has been praised by international critics for his trilogy Ragada, Goodbye, Lindita, and Taverna Miresia: Mario, Bella, Anastasia. After sold-out repeated runs at the National Theatre of Greece and the Athens Epidaurus Festival, and the Jury Award in the 57th BITEF Festival in Belgrade, his works are now received with enthusiasm in international festivals around the world.
In his physical theatre, Banushi creates hyperrealist worlds, interior spaces where the familiar and the uncanny intertwine, memory meets grief, and quotidian scenes merge with folk rituals and community memory. In this open seminar and Q+A, Banushi will explain how he develops his pieces through autobiographical archives, collective memory and trauma, as well as an insistence on the performers’ affective interaction during the performance.
Sharing audiovisual material from recent and forthcoming works, he will also discuss his other major themes: family and kinship, gender, Balkan and Greek-Albanian identity, loss and survival. He will also talk about today’s vibrant Greek theatre scene, but also the challenges it poses.
Mario Banushi @ Oxford is brought to you by the Sub-Faculty of Modern Greek, Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages, University of Oxford. You can read more about Mario's work in the Guardian and in the Café Europa newsletter.
The event is free to attend and all are welcome. The event's Facebook page can be found here.
