Mystery 76 Don’t Look Back

L’ heure de l’ horreur ou le malheur du Bonheur or
How I imagined Hades
In my dream one night.

2023 Eleusis European Capital of Culture presents Mystery 76 Don’t Look Back, the new creation by Yannis Houvardas. The three Warehouses of the Old Oil Mill Factory of Elefsina will be transformed into the abandoned Hotel Spectre in which the spectres of the mythical lovers Orpheus and Eurydice will be brought to life, portraying the fateful moments of their tragic love. An unprecedented dreamlike journey that blurs the lines between audience and performers, inviting spectators to make crucial decisions at key points in their tour.

Walking the line between thriller, science fiction and metaphysical performance, Mystery 76 Don’t Look Back draws inspiration from the one condition imposed by Hades, king of the Underworld, on Orpheus if he wanted to bring his beloved Eurydice back up with him to the world of the living: Don’t look back. The project is also inspired by other famous tragic love stories as captured in film, theatre, poetry, music, dance, visual and other art forms.The audience steps into a labyrinthian ghost hotel, the Hotel Spectre, starting a “descent” to Hades. Following the dreamlike figures as they appear, act and disappear, the audience is drawn into a close-up experience of their own. All these figures who were, at some point in their lives, an Orpheus or a Eurydice, are now the fragments of a tragic, unrequited or unredeemed love. A love that was born and died inside the Hotel Spectre, leaving the “victim” – and sometimes the “perpetrator” – mutilated, like immaterial visions, wandering in the rooms of the “hotel”, without the possibility of contact or any communication with their partner, sometimes visible to the public, but not to themselves.

During this journey, time seems to have paused at the “cursed moment” when the fatal event occurred – whether a murder or a suicide, a painful separation or a terminal illness, betrayal or madness, even an unexpected and unexplained disappearance. The spectre of each hero returns again and again, without end, without redemption, as if in repeated punishment, to the place and time of the “crime”, searching for their lost other half, reliving the event that led them to this state of “eternal captivity”. Space and time lose their ordinary form, and as in a dream the conscious submits to the subconscious. Imagination becomes dominant and anything can happen.

This production does not bear any resemblance to dreamthinkspeak’s Don’t Look Back from 2003 – 2008.

Useful Information:
-No admission is possible for late arrivals.
-Spectators must wear a disposable mask during the performance, furnished upon arrival at the meeting point.
-For technical reasons related to the smooth running of the performance, spectators must hand over their mobile phone before the start of the performance and will receive it at the end upon presentation of their identity card or equivalent identification document.
-The performance is in Greek, without subtitles in a foreign language.
Audience members are advised to wear comfortable shoes, as they will be standing during much of the performance and will have to move between venues.
-The performance is accessible to people with disabilities.