In the one-act play “The Man Next Door”, part of the show “Exaggerations!” which will be presented on October 12 and 13 at the theater upstairs, Angelos Bouras invites us to explore the upheavals and contradictions hidden behind the seemingly ordinary neighbor. Through his performance, he reveals the fragility of the human soul, approaching themes such as loneliness and the need for connection.
With a combination of humor and dramatic intensity, Bouras transforms the common man into an everyday hero, shedding light on the hidden aspects of our lives. Speaking to pelop.gr, he shares the challenges and influences that determined his interpretation, revealing how a simple story can become a mirror of our society.
– Is there a “man next door” in you? If so, when was the last time you let him out?
I don’t know if I’m the “guy next door”… I really hadn’t thought about it. I feel that our work makes us different from the “guy next door”. The fact that we go to the theater every day at 9 o’clock, put on some other clothes, become someone else and make people move, I think that a “man next door” can not only do it, but imagine it. I don’t think I personally have the makings of a “guy next door” as we think of him.
On the other hand, I have evidence from this particular “man” that this man is the “invisible” man, that no one pays attention to, the man that everyone takes their eyes off of. And you know, having been a fat kid in the past, I understand from a different perspective what it means to have everyone look at you in a completely different, almost toxic way and look down on you. So through that lens, I understand this man.
– You talked about this “invisible” man who, however, is hiding something dangerous here.
He is hiding something dangerous and that is the strange thing about this story. In the end, we don’t know if he is the victim after all or the abuser because of all that he has been through.
– Isn’t this true in almost all cases? Depending on which part of the story you hear, someone can be the perpetrator or the victim.
Yes, but it depends at what point the abuser has reached an excess and has gone beyond what we call legitimate, or “normal” or legal. Because once you get past that and become abusive, then you can’t be on the abuser’s side. Whatever he’s been through, whatever happened to him.
– Let’s go back to the “invisible” man who is hiding something dangerous. When you interpreted this man did you wonder how much goes unnoticed in your own reality?
We all hide a dark self, but the point is to come to terms with it and not let it surface. It is too easy to escape, but I try, and I want to believe we try, to become better people and to make a career of what we call kindness, prudence and gentleness. If we break out of that, we will reach states that I’m sure we are all capable of reaching, but something is holding us back. This “man”, he is not a bad man, he is not a criminal, a man who aims to kill, to rape.
He is a man who is driven there day by day, step by step. There is a path to get there, things lead him. His need for contact drives him there. And also at the end we don’t know what he does to her. And that’s another thing that struck me playing the show. Each godfather sees his own interpretation at the end. Did he rape her? Did he kill her? I think of the most tender thing: that this man wanted a hug and did nothing else. He just cuddled with a girl he couldn’t have or claimed a hug he never got.
As I grow older, I try to be closer to that tender part that people lose over the years.
– Isn’t it usually the other way around? Isn’t a cynicism coming?
Usually yes. This happened to me, strange as it may sound, when my nieces came into my life. I am not a father, I have no parental instinct. However, everything moved, everything changed, with the arrival of my nieces. I saw the world from a completely different perspective and saw that there is this continuity in life. There is a legacy that we leave behind, a link with some people that should – if it exists – soften us. And I’m very happy about it. I no longer want to have anything in me that shakes my good element, whatever I consider my good element. And I’m not saying that Christianly, but really, in life.
– How easy it is in everyday life for this to happen and what kind of brakes one should put on, given that we do not live in a world created by angels.
It needs work, like all things, but also action. Man takes courage by acting. So I’m heading in that direction. I neither sit down to be miserable, nor do I live in this cloud of arrogance that has been put on us and we say that everything is the other person’s fault. I always say it can be my fault and I can be wrong. And this automatically leads me to a path of self-awareness, to seeing things in the dimension that I give them at the present moment. So I don’t exaggerate situations and that keeps me from making demons and monsters.
– It takes strength for this.
It’s a decision. And happiness is a decision. And I have made a decision to be happy and live well with myself and those around me. I’m practically talking about “well-being”.
– Going back to the character you play… If you had to take him into your home, what would be the first thing you would want to ask the “man next door” to understand what he is really thinking when he looks at you?
At a show we played, at the end a gentleman came and said to me: “you know, I am what you did”. I ask him what he means and he says “I am him, they look at me like that, everyone says about me this, this, this…”. I asked him to sit down for a while and he started talking to me about himself, how everyone has him on the “outside”, how everyone looks at him strangely. And I asked him what is life like for a person who constantly feels threatened by someone else? This guy owns a shop, so he turns around and says, “Have you seen that every day I buy myself flowers?” And he almost cried because no one has bought him flowers. Will someone tell me: is it so serious? Finally it is! He tells me: “I do things for myself uniquely, because no one else does.”
So a viewer responded to what you said when I asked him what it’s like to be like that, to have that open wound every day, to feel like you’re being fingered, that you don’t belong in what we call society because you don’t conform to today’s standards. What he replied to me was: “I make things so that I can be good with myself.”
– Did the way you saw or interpreted your character change afterwards? Did you see him differently?
In any case, the character I play, because I co-wrote the play with Vassilis Papageorgiou, I understand him very well and I have justified him in myself. And for that I probably haven’t credited him with something more serious, some rape or some crime. Because I think he is a wounded man who is trying to find his place, to exist in life with dignity. It is very difficult to be in this margin circle. I imagine it takes a lot of courage to face it and it’s easy to get away with. But the hero that I play escapes so much – as in, he escapes in terms of tenderness.
– If you had to choose another “man next door” from today’s society who would it be and why? Do you suspect someone who might be hiding this side of them behind “normalcy”?
Because I no longer wonder about anything, and I think this is an element of my maturation, I believe that all people – possibly – hide such a “person”. Things happen around us and some people say “I fell from the clouds”, “he was the good family man, the man next door, he had never given rights”… Of course all this is true, until the moment something happened and triggered his hurt himself. So, yes, I think that around us potentially each of us can become the “man next door”. But there is the limit we put on ourselves which has to do with the limits we have put on others before so that they don’t get to the point of taking us there.
– In this particular hero, since you have co-written him, have you put your own fear or your own secret?
The fear of being alone. This is one of my fears, not having someone close to me, whether it’s a partner, whether it’s my family, etc. On the other hand, I create the conditions so that this doesn’t happen, I “work” every day as much as I can on my relationships, both the friendly ones and the family ones and the romantic ones so that I can be very honest with them and present so that I never get to the point of being alone. Of course, you never know… This is a fear of mine that certainly exists in Viktoras as well.
– And I can’t help but ask, what is it like to return to Patras and how do you feel about it.
I have said it and I say it again often about Patras: For me, it is a place where my first steps in the theater began with great roles in DIPETHE, when the DIPETHE of Patras was a theater comparable to the National and State Theater of the North Greece. It was the third most popular theater in the country in terms of visibility and quality, with performances that came to Athens and were jealous and the audience followed them, with actors who had something to say and who came with great joy not to the province, but to the theater of Patras. And that makes a huge difference. They were coming to a theater that had the infrastructure to embrace them and where real and meaningful work was being done. And I am very happy that I caught this glamor of DIPETHE Patras and every time I come it moves me because I see friends. I have psycho-emotional bonds with people in Patras. And here’s an example: on the occasion of the show I’m going to come with and suddenly I see an interest from journalists and people I’ve been talking to for years and I say: what is the imprint that an actor leaves behind? Human relationships, what else? I don’t sleep with my roles at night, I sleep with the people I’ve met in my life. And this is something that really motivates me every time I come to Patras.
Info
“Uprovoles!”, a performance by Yiannis Kalavrianou, Marianna Kalbaris, Vassilis Mavrogeorgiou
October 12 and 13, 21.00 at the Orofos Theater in Patras
“My father was a very angry man”
Text-direction: Marianna Kalbari
With Katerina Lipiridou
Featuring Marianna Kalbari/Marilena Moschou
“The Man Next Door”
Text: Vassilis Mavrogeorgiou, Angelos Bouras
Directed by: Vassilis Mavrogeorgiou
With Angel Bura
“First time I met a man who talked like a train”
Text-Direction: Yannis Kalavrianou
With Despina Yiannopoulou
Ticket prices:
General admission: 15 euros
Reduced: 13 euros (student, unemployed, disabled)
Presale: ticketservices.gr and reservations at 2611-810983
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