Group-Analytic Contexts, Issue 81, September 2018

Newsletter – Autumn 2018 33
A Life Not Lived
A theatrical one-act play, based on a combination of truelife
experiences and narratives
By Kalliopi Panagiotopoulou
Performed at the 8 th Annual Conference: ’Psychosis and Migration’,
of ISPS Hellas, 2/12/2017, organized by Dr Anastassios Koukis, Chair
of ISPS Hellas, in Athens, Greece.
The narrator sits in an office and reads half-hidden behind a huge old
diary with his head bent over and the lamp.
Plutarch, a man suffering from psychosis, wears a jacket buttoned up
to his neck, when he speaks he looks no one in the face, his eyes turn
slightly sideways and low, his right hand on the temple next to his
right eye, with his fingers half-opened, as if the light dazzles him. The
voice loud, sharp, steadfast, spitting the words as if they were orders.
The refugee, Rashid, as if coming out of deserted shadows, from the
background, as a reflection, he is all eyes and his gender is not visible.
He wears jeans and a shirt, wide and long like a robe, with a dirty
backpack and torn sports shoes.
The reporter’s voice is intermittently heard with difficulty, from far
away.
Aaa!!! The cry awakens the sky. A man is born.
NARRATOR: New Plutarch is born! New Plutarch is born! The
grandfather, Plutarch, was almost dancing full of joy in the corridors
of the maternity hospital that the son of his son was born, treating
everyone. He also bought many books on the life and work of ancient
Plutarch and shared copies to his friends, relatives and neighbours. His
rejoicing did not fit into his mind; it was all taken away and went out
into the streets rolling like a raging river.
NARRATOR: Baby Plutarch - he is crying, scared, hungry and is
shouting so loudly that the swing is trembling.