Lena Divani. Theatrika: I orea thymomeni, i Pentanostimi, Ikogeniako Dikeo.(Book review)

Lena Divani. Theatrika: I orea thymomeni, i Pentanostimi, Ikogeniako Dikeo. Athens. Kastaniotis. 2007. 208 pages. 15.67 [euro]. ISBN 978-960-034604-6

Although the three plays in this volume were written (and some even successfully staged) a few years ago, they come out in print only now, at a time when the name of Lena Divani has been established in the minds of modern Greek readers as a popular and diverse writer with a fresh, playful, and gender-conscious approach to contemporary urban life. Divani is the kind of writer who, although working from within academia--she is associate professor of the history of Greek foreign policy at the University of Athens--uses culture to sharpen and spice up her per spective with a sustained, rebellious youthfulness instead of submitting it to the stiff starch of scholarly jargon. Accordingly, each of her plays mixes humor (from downright farce to mordant irony) with daring parodic forays into various speech genres--often, in the tradition of ecriture feminine, playfully intertwined--to offer a critical yet ultimately affirming perspective into the problems of mundane existence, the relations between men and women, family dynamics, or class struggles.

This thread uniting the three plays Divani has written so far ...