The most successful comedy by Dimitra Papadopoulou

Grandpa Has High Blood Pressure

presented this summer

at the Atrium of the

Hellenic Cosmos Cultural Center

Dimitra Papadopoulou's successful comedy returns under the direction of Christos Tripodis this summer at the Atrium of the Hellenic Cosmos Cultural Center, in a new production by Methexis. The role of Grandpa is played by Tasos Chalkias. Alongside him are Krateros Katsoulis, Marilou Katsafadou, Dimitra Stogianni, Hero Pektesi, and Aris Antonopoulos.

A grandpa, three eccentric granddaughters, a "cop," a young ideologist, a "murder," and a romantic dinner with lentils lead a crazy Greek family into hilarious situations. Three sisters at a turning point in their lives, the anarchic Popi, who falls in love with a "cop," the fearful Fofi, who declares her personal revolution and sets new terms and rules in her life, and Maria, the career woman who aims to finally become a mother, get involved in uncontrollable misunderstandings. The connecting link of all is the left-wing and demented Grandpa, who becomes the ideological inspiration for the establishment of the new political movement, named "Search." The movement created by Haris, Maria's partner, aspires to become the voice of the younger generation of Greeks.

The legendary "Grandpa" by Dimitra Papadopoulou, after its staging in 1997 and 2012, returns dynamically to bring joy and laughter to our summer evenings, with more "pressure" than ever.

Author's Note by Dimitra Papadopoulou:

Comedy is globally an endangered genre. Everywhere I hear that producers "search for comedy and can't find any"... It's an era where drama, pain, violence, mental illnesses, and "splatter" abound in entertainment. Why? Because comedy requires magnanimity, which means not taking oneself seriously, knowing one's insignificance, even the insignificance of one's problem, and having the courage to distance oneself and laugh with it.

Comedy is now unapproachable because it cannot compete with drama, which can easily evoke emotions with easy ways like deaths, diseases, blood, violent explosions, and other such cute things. Breaking a head, for example, or gutting someone, and with the upgrade of image and the wealth of effects, plenty of emotions and sentiments are easily stirred up, while laughter is a much more difficult mechanism to produce and to evoke intense emotions. For all these and other things that for the sake of conversation economy I'll stop here, comedy remains a genre on the verge of disappearance, a genre for the museum.

But I will always fight for this genre because it's the only genre appreciated by my soul.

Grandpa Has High Blood Pressure is my first theatrical work written in a difficult time for me but with an abundance of love for people. One thing is for sure, to make comedy, you must above all love people and not want to tarnish them with any of your toxins and seek from your surplus to give joy. And until today, thankfully, a lot of people laughed with this work. I don't want to share any other emotion with you. I hope to always have the strength for difficulties to keep me in this alchemical process of comedy. I think there is no greater gift than this genre. Have fun from an old era of mine that became laughter, and I hope this performance achieves it once again.