Berserkers: Philoctetes

The Tbilisi premiere of the Kutaisi-based Liandagi Theatre production “Berserkers: Philoctetes”!

In his own version of Philoctetes, Heiner Müller draws on the ancient myth to reexamine the fate of the hero deceived by Odysseus and expelled by the Greeks. Müller explores the core dilemma of an individual cast out from the collective — and the possibility of return, achievable only through an extremely painful and arduous path.

This dramatic conflict — between the collective and the individual, coercion and autonomy — investigates, in radically expressed forms, fundamental political and social questions that continue to shape our contemporary world.
How does the majority treat those it perceives as a minority?
What does exclusion and banishment mean in modern society?
What is the cost of complete detachment from the social body?
What defines true loyalty and faithfulness?
And where do the boundaries of solidarity lie when political or militaristic interests are at stake?

Written in the 1960s, Philoctetes has not lost its original political and aesthetic explosive power. According to the creative team behind Berserkers, its first-ever Georgian-language staging within today’s political and social context can serve as a powerful reflection on themes of power, betrayal, solidarity, and the instrumentalization and dehumanization of the individual.