Nafplion Blues: Prison Stories. The Prisons of Nafplion as Brutal Scenographies

Abstract

The prison sites and their timeless presence in the city of Nafplion were the starting point for two workshops for students of the University of the Peloponnese. The result of these workshops titled Nafplion Blues: Prison Stories, was presented in the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space 2023 as part of the Greek student exhibition. Students of the module “Performance and space” created the site-specific performance Listen-Watch-Βe Silent in which performers and spectators participated in a pilgrimage procession to former prison sites in Nafplion. The module “Social Theatre” was held at the Agricultural Prison of Tiryns. After a series of theatre workshops, the inmates and the students presented the devised performance The Journeys of the Potato, from Andes to Tiryns: Legends and Truths to only two spectators and the prison guards. In the present paper, the authors focus on the use of the prison – in the present and in the past – as performance space. Prisons function as the absolute dystopian places that oscillate between private and public space: from the Agricultural Prison of Tiryns’ hermetically sealed, private space to the open, public space of the historic city of Nafplion, where the buildings that once housed prisons are scattered throughout the city. In this type of found spaces, the spectators and the performers are moved both emotionally and physically. Through the brutality emitted by the real substance of the sites, the “scenographic city” reveals stories and traumas, while inviting spectators and creators to assume social and political responsibility.