Strange Homelands: Encountering the Migrant on the Contemporary Greek Stage

Abstract

This article examines three examples from recent Greek theatre that stage the experiences of migrants and refugees against the backdrop of Greece’s growing internationalism and multiculturalism. In allowing migrants to author their own narratives of border-crossing into a new “homeland,” these theatrical endeavours attempt to break both the monologism of Greek theatre and monolithic understandings of national identity. In acknowledging the risks and tensions underpinning the migrant’s presence on stage, the article also applies pressure to questions of encounter, authenticity, representation, and self-expression, and it interrogates some ways in which migratory subjects navigate the precarious space of belonging and author themselves in the context of contemporary Greek theatre.