Archimedes’ Principle

The day when the "Little Seahorses", the children's swimming team, will start swimming without a lifesaver has come. This important moment for the youngest of the pool becomes an excuse for some suspicions, doubts and fears to emerge. Anna, the director of the swimming club, asks Jordi, the trainer of the "Little Seahorses", for account of his ways of dealing with a little boy's denial to go into the pool without the lifesaver due to being afraid of drowning. Jordi reassures her that he reacted with kindness, without confronting or scaring him. The parents, though, are worried that Jordi hugged and kissed the boy in order to make him feel safe.

In the chlorine-filled environment of a public pool (a perfect parable of our extremely aseptic society), Jusep Maria Miró develops a story on an event that may or may not have happened. Is it an innocent kiss on the cheek, as the trainer keeps on repeating, or was there indeed a nasty intention? The events are presented from two exactly opposite points of view that remain unchanged throughout the performance. Thus, the viewer is the one that is up to solve this difficult dilemma.

The problem that Archimedes' Principle puts is not whether the trainer is innocent or guilty, since there isn't any objective indication that can support the one or the other opinion. The play intends to make the viewer question the social model that is forced in the West. In the end, in Archimedes' Principle the public opinion condemns the trainer not for what he did, but for what he could have done.

Written by Josep Maria Miró
Translated by Maria Hadjiemmanouil
Directed by Thodoris Vournas
Art direction: Alexandros Nikolaos Ziogas
Lighting: Katerina Maragoudaki
Assistant director: Sofia Legatou
Music: Giorgos Antoniou
Promo photography and artwork: George Giannimpas
Performance photography: Yannis Kouskoutis

With Antigoni Kouloukakos, Panagiotis Malikourtis, Vassilis Tsigristaris and Alexios Kotsoris

The play was presented at Theater Argo in 2015.