I IMPROVE UNEXPECTEDLY
NAME: MARILENA DOGANI
AGE: 39
PLACE OF RESIDENCE: NORTH ATHENS
BIRTHPLACE: ATHENS
ORIGIN: SMYRNA
ON THE NIGHT OF THE PREMIERE SHE WILL DRIVE WITH HER PARTNER FROM MAROUSI, DOWN KIFISIAS AVENUE AND VASSILEOS KONSTANTINOU AVENUE, TURN RIGHT TO CHATZICHRISTOU STREET, PARK THE CAR NEAR THE NEW MUSEUM OF ACROPOLIS AND WALK TOWARDS HERODEION.
Marilena’s friends say that she has always been terribly unpredictable and born to stay a true non-conformist. She got married when she was 26 years old, and her friends and her parents learnt about it only 24 hours earlier. One year after, she got a divorce, but her ex-husband never stopped being a friend of hers. She spent 6 years travelling to Padova, Italy, every month because of an intimate relationship with someone there: their intention was to get married but stay in different countries.
Her very close friends also know that she can go through disasters without "breaking down", because she looks like a fragile woman, but reacts like a tough man when problems appear. For example, when she was diagnosed with a really serious medical problem needing surgery, she informed her relatives about it the night before the operation and organized every detail on her own – everything about the operation and in case of her death. Fortunately, it ended well. Two years later, she became pregnant with her son Thanos. When the baby came, her whole life-perspective had changed.
Having not much time for reading, the only contact she had with ancient drama was at school. Her new plan is to create a powerpoint with favourite pictures and songs her son can understand, in which she will include some characters from ancient drama to "open up his mind" and get him acquainted with concepts he will hear and realize later on.
She considers Oedipus Rex the most important Greek tragedy. Oedipus fulfilled a prophecy that he would kill his father and marry his mother, and thus brought disaster on his city and family. Such a ‘cosmic’ irony, she says, still a very modern subject, to believe that you step towards success, while actually you create your own disaster.
[981] “But ever-ageing Time teaches all things,” says Prometheus and this is the moto she has in life since she was 18 years old, always on her mind in hard or good times. However, she identifies with Io, not because she’s a victim but because she reveals a sort of female power. As she admits “I think I’m in the same phase in my life”.
She is a great admirer of her mother, who gave up her career to bring up a child – certainly the most “enjoyable destruction of egocentrism”. She explains: “my son is my sun and my mother is my goddess”. From ancient drama, however, she identifies herself with Themis, the goddess of justice.
© Rimini Protokoll