Live Theatre: 5:36 Port Said (LITTLE VENICE)
Puppet Theatre Barge • Little Venice
4th November 7.30pm
Live Theatre
*THIS IS A THEATRE, NOT A PUPPET SHOW*
Three strangers, three worlds that never meet in daylight, are trapped in the same elevator as they come face to face with History. Based on a family archive, 5:36 Port Said fuses theatre and spoken poetry to explore identity and the haunting drama of the Greek diaspora in 1950s Egypt.
At 5:36 a.m. in Alexandria’s Lepsius Street, three strangers are trapped in a stalled elevator, three worlds that never meet in daylight, suddenly face to face with History. In the words of Michel Tournier, ‘Nothing isolates us more than our secrets,’ as the machine halts abruptly and the cold metallic chamber becomes a place of confinement where a slow story of loss and revelation unfolds.
The elevator becomes a symbol of a community losing the ground beneath its feet. Outside, the city shifts: loves vanish forever, treasures pass hands, houses empty, shops close. The Greek community of Egypt sees its past shrink into photographs, postcards, and small objects unable to contain the weight of loss.
5:36 Port Said, inspired by a family archive and a yellow notebook whose last page carries a haunting farewell: “In five days I will be in our Greece. I promise never to forget Alexandria, which welcomed the Greeks.”
Suitable for age 12+
