La vie de Galilée

The Gin Game

April 1981 •English

Weller Martin and Fonsia Dorsey, two elderly residents at a nursing home for senior citizens, strike up an acquaintance. Neither seems to have any other friends, and they start to enjoy each other's company. Weller offers to teach Fonsia how to play gin rummy, and they begin playing a series of games that Fonsia always wins. Weller's inability to win a single hand becomes increasingly frustrating to him, while Fonsia becomes increasingly confident. While playing their games of gin, they engage in lengthy conversations about their families and their lives in the outside world. Gradually, each conversation becomes a battle, much like the ongoing gin games, as each player tries to expose the other's weaknesses, to belittle the other's life, and to humiliate the other thoroughly.

Iphigénie

July 1968 •French

On the shores of Aulis, the Greeks prepare to attack Troy. But their ships are unable to set sail because the gods are holding back the winds necessary for departure. Agamemnon consults the oracle. The solution is tragic. To appease the goddess Artemis, whom he had offended, he must sacrifice his own daughter.

The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil

June 1974 •English

In their songs, comedy and exuberant music, a travelling theatre company give a fiercely polemic account of Scottish history, from the aftermath of Culloden to the oil boom. Their production before a live audience is intercut with filmed reconstructions of the Highland Clearances and the Victorian obsession with hunting stags.

The Phantom of the Opera

June 1991 •English

A comedy musical stage version of the Phantom of the Opera, filmed live on-stage during a performance in Florida.

Návrat do pekla

January 1974 •Czech

Der Hauptmann von Köpenick

September 1997 •German

Each is dependent on the other. He breaks into the passport office to get a passport. He is surprised and ends up back in prison, where he is trained in military drill. After his release, he once again lodges with relatives, his sister and brother-in-law. Wearing a second-hand captain's uniform, he first takes over a guard unit and uses it to occupy Köpenick town hall, where all the employees of the town council submit to the supposed captain. The mayor is promoted to Berlin and Voigt presents himself to the authorities a few days later. At first, everyone present laughs at the prank, but then Voigt is made aware of the legal consequences. He is sent back to prison, but shortly afterwards he is pardoned by the Emperor.

Le Médecin malgré lui

August 1973 •French

Arseniko kai palia dantela

April 1981 •Greek

Members of an otherwise typical New York Brooklyn family are "tortured" by a kind of hereditary madness. In the meantime, the adopted nephew Mortimer tries to do everything to protect his two aunts, who indulge in a variety of dangerous acts, such as poisoning lonely and homeless elderly people, and burying them in the basement of their house. When another niece, Jonathan, arrives, the situation will spiral out of control. The play was released on DVD by Radiotileorasi magazine in December 2010 (78th DVD of the "ERT Cultural Film Archive" series).

Christmas Encore

December 2017 •English

A struggling actress is cast in her last off (off) Broadway show - a modern take on “A Christmas Carol” - before giving up her dream and moving home. Instead, she finds romance with her director and a renewed passion for her craft and the city. But when the historic theater loses its lease and the show is set to fold, she and her cast mates are need of a Christmas miracle.

Tuntematon sotilas

February 2009 •Finnish

Kristian Smeds's sensational debut at the National Theater. Smeds's adaptation of Väinö Linna's The Unknown Soldier had a powerful impact even on those who had not seen the play. In the National Theater's interpretation, modernity and intensity are strongly present throughout the play. The cast includes Antti Luusuaniemi, Kristo Salminen, and Jaakko Kytömaa.

Tío Vania

March 1969 •Spanish

Übü király

March 1989 •Hungarian

The Empty King created a mythical figure and a whole world from grotesque, archetypal images. The drama was originally conceived as a student tirade against a teacher at Jarry's school, the Lyceum of Rennes. This teacher, Hébert, was the target of public ridicule. In 1888, at the age of 15, Jarry wrote a puppet play about the exploits of the Woolly Tartar and staged it to the amusement of his friends. The figure of Übü is a crude, cruel caricature of the foolish, selfish bourgeoisie as seen through the unrelenting gaze of a schoolboy; but this Rabelaisian figure, in all his falstaffian greed and cowardice, is more than a mere social satire. It is a terrifying picture of man's animal nature, his evil and cruelty. The Katona József Theatre in Budapest premiered Jarry's play in 1984, and it ran continuously for more than 10 years.

The Shop at Sly Corner

July 1946 •English

A shrewd ex-prisoner runs a successful antique shop -- until his assistant discovers the collectibles are stolen goods and begins blackmailing him.

The Post Office

January 1973 •Bengali

Amol, a child, is confined to his adoptive uncle's home by an incurable disease. He stands in the courtyard and talks to passers-by and inquires about the places they go to. The construction of a new post office nearby prompts the imaginative Amol to fantasise about receiving a letter from the King or being his postman.

Christmas at the Cupiello Household

December 1977 •Italian

Luca Cupiello, like every Christmas, prepares the crib, amid the disinterest of his wife Concetta and his son Tommasino. Ninuccia, the other daughter, writes a letter to her husband in which she communicates that she leaves him for her lover. The letter happens in the hands of Luca who hands it over to his son-in-law, who thus learns of his wife's betrayal. During lunch on Christmas Eve, the two rivals, who were confronted by Luca's carelessness, clash violently.

Gennareniello

February 1978 •Italian

Gennareniello, a crazy inventor, is married to Concettina and lives at home with his son Tommasino, full of tics, his spinster sister and with Matteo, a drawing master who makes plans for his inventions. Driven by his friends, the man courts the young teacher Anna and when his wife notices it, he is forced to run away from home, overwhelmed by the scorn of derision of friends and acquaintances who come to disguise him as a dandy, thus offending his dignity.

Lu Curaggio De Nu Pumpiero Napulitano

July 1975 •Italian

Thanks to the legacy of an English lord, the cobbler Andrea has become a baron and now has delusions of nobility: he wants a high-ranking marriage for his stepdaughter Virginia and does not recognize the brothers of his wife, Rosina and Michele, even after the latter has saved the his house from a fire. Virginia does not like her promised Marchese Alberto, but Felice Sciosciammocca, a shy and poor master of calligraphy, who reciprocates her. But when Felice learns that the girl will soon marry another, out of spite he accepts the court of the late Marquise Zoccola, Alberto's mother.

Samet Sons

November 1975 •Arabic

A Kuwaiti play talks about the life of Kuwaitis in the years of poverty experienced by Kuwaitis before the economic boom in the seventies, and discusses work in a comic framework of economic and social problems, including poverty, education, and health, by dealing with the stories of work heroes.

Lemonade

September 1971 •English

A perceptive and funny study about the fantasies, inhibitions and dreams of two frustrated and lonely middle-class matrons who set up competing lemonade stands along a jammed highway. This short play incorporates comedy and tragedy, a touch of the bizarre, and ultimately, a sincere compassion in both women.

King Lear

May 2018 •English

An aging King invites disaster, when he abdicates to his corrupt, toadying daughters, and rejects his loving and honest one.