My First Impressions of "The Price" by Lena Kitsopoulou

I found this play very interesting to read, as it seems to be quite confusing at first and no one really knew what it was about. However, by spending longer trying to find what message she might be trying to convey to the audience, her message became a lot clearer.

Lena Kitsopoulou has tried to simplify the financial difficulties in Greece, by putting the issues into an everyday situation.This makes the play seem very abstract of the social and political issues that she is trying to portray to the audience.

I think the simplistic language and the short sentences make the play easy to read and understand and allows the audience to gain a clear insight to the man and the woman in the play.

It is very interesting that they treat the topic of having a baby as if it doesn't really matter and they state the main reason for not having one is because of their money. This could emphasise that everything has become objects. Nothing has it's own personality anymore and we are able to buy anything we want. This creates a lot of tension between the man and the woman. By referring to the Roquefort cheese that he used to have as a child, emphasises that he only cares about appearances and how he looks to his friends, not the welfare of the child. The woman seems to only want the baby because the man insisted on it. She then goes on to change the baby for a deaf and mute one. This strongly questions their morals and focuses again on the social difficulties they are facing.

The play seems very detailed and confusing, however all of the social and political views become apparent as you read through it. I think this will be a very interesting play to work on and even though there isn't much you can do for characterisation, you will be able to research all the background information into Greece's financial problems and the repercussions caused. You can tell that this will be really interesting to produce in the style of Brecht because it focuses the audience more onto, not what the actor's are doing, but why they are doing this.