Zuidpool - Alkibiades

Alcibiades

On June 9, 411 BC, the first democracy humanity has ever known is abolished indefinitely in Athens. It will have existed for exactly one hundred years. The instigator is the flamboyant politician and military commander Alcibiades, the most beautiful man in Greece. Extravagant, androgynous, brilliant, and controversial. On May 23, 2023 AD, Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer publishes his monumental novel "Alcibiades." Pfeijffer masterfully describes the remarkable rise and fall of the historical figure Alcibiades. This adventurous epic with Homeric proportions is a journey through time to the world of almost 2,500 years ago, "when more and more symptoms, disturbingly recognizable to us, began to point to the decline of democracy and actually led to the defeat of Athens." On October 17, 2025 AD, Zuidpool premieres the production "Alcibiades." In a comprehensive adaptation of the book, Alcibiades looks us straight in the eye and accounts for his actions, his life, and his struggle. Was he the populist who dismantled democracy? Or could he have been its savior? At the same time, he holds up a confronting mirror to us. Are we aware of the fragility of our democracies? Is the people capable of knowing what is good for the people?