A Few Questions for Marios Mettis
Marios Mettis trained as an actor at the National Theatre of Greece Drama School and as a theatre director at Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts in London (MA in Theatre Directing, University of East Anglia). As an actor he has worked in theatre, film and TV. His work in theatre includes acting for the National Theatre of Greece, Theatro Amore, Elliniki Theamaton, The National Theatre of Cyprus (THOC) and various other venues. This July he directed the classical Greek comedy Lysistrata for THOC at Cypriot open-air amphitheaters. Marios brought joy to the 2022 Festival with The Magic Tower and is staging Stairs to the Roof at the 2023 Festival in Provincetown.
Q: The show is a tremendous design challenge: there’s a park, a house, an office, a roof top. Where do you start?
Marios Mettis: I always focus on sound, how the show will sound like. For me what the show will sound like is more important than what the show will look like. Imagination is the main tool. If you get the audience to imagine something then they will see it, even if it is not there. And this is a great achievement. This turns the audience from passive to active, and an active audience is what you want - viewers that use their imagination to “complete” the image, to connect the dots. When the audience participates in the making of the show, the show matters more to them, because it is their creation, too.
Q: When you read the text first what did you think?
Marios Mettis: I am always attracted to anthropocentric texts, texts whose central focus is people: how they act and behave. Tennessee has a remarkable way of approaching human behavior. He knows his characters well, their needs and fears. [The Greek philosopher] Socrates believed that no one voluntarily pursues evil. To prefer evil to good is not in human nature. I believe that, too. So to me even the villains in the play are people that suffer and need proper attention.
Williams says Stairs to the Roof is “a prayer for the wild of heart that are kept in cages.” People without realizing they’re doing it, build themselves cages, and throw themselves in them. In this play, people that can’t get what they desire and what they truly want. People that suppress their urges and feelings and that are forced to act in a certain way. “Stairs to the Roof” is a play about the domestication of the wild human animal. Living in cities, we have taken ourselves from our natural habitat and forced ourselves into big or small cages. No matter how small or big a cage is still a cage. People become sad and depressed because they have forgotten who they really are. They need to free themselves again and breath.
Q: You came to the Festival first as an actor, in an adaptation of Williams’ “Angel in the Alcove.” That was in 2019. What did you think?
Marios Mettis: What struck me when I first visited Ptown was that every single building, room I was in, the windows were shut and the air conditioners were working tirelessly. I tried to open the window of the room I was changing in for the show, but I was immediately instructed to shut it. I didn’t understand why. The weather outside was fine, neither too cold neither too hot, so why the need for ventilation? After a day or two I became sick. Ben the protagonist of Stairs to the Roof says: BEN: Since they've had that new cooling system installed we're not allowed to open up the windows. Frankly the air in here gets just as thick as molasses. The air outside is hot—but even so you don't know what a blessed relief it can be to step out there and fill your lungs with it and know it's exclusively yours and not just borrowed a moment from somebody at the next desk.
When I read this it reminded me immediately of the instant in Ptown. People need to breath and fill their lungs with air. In Cyprus we are blessed with this opportunity. Cyprus is a very small island so even if you live in the city like I do, an escape to nature, to the mountains, or the beach, is only one or two hours drive away. People get crazy in Cyprus because of the extreme heat waves so they often escape to the beach. I am writing this, in fact while away from the city. I am at the mountains and close to the beach.
