Several years ago—more than I’d care to count—my younger self remembers rainy afternoons in kindergarten, when, as the day came to an end, our teacher would suggest we play a simple and much-loved game: the “rain game”. Its rule was clear and easy: we just had to sit still and listen. Yet, somehow, this simple act could make a group of restless children fall completely silent as they focused on the sound of the rain. And I recall this beautiful, modest little game feeding my imagination every bit as much as a story read aloud.

That memory came back to me last week, sitting in the National Theatre at the premiere of Cow/Deer, where nature’s sounds—crickets, animals, branches, rain, wind—created live on stage conjured up the world in which the tale of two animals played out.

Created by UK-based artists Katie Mitchell, Nina Segal and Melanie Wilson, Cow/Deer is an acoustic experience and an exploration of the “more-than-human world.” It marks the first collaboration between the National Theatre of Greece and London’s Royal Court Theatre.

Photo by Valeria Isaeva

You hear the sounds; images are up to you

It’s the summer of 2025, during the third heatwave sweeping across the UK. A surtitle line, one of the few cues we’ll receive for the next hour, sets the scene as we follow our two heroines, a cow and a deer, living their own day, in their own worlds: a farm and a forest. Every sound—their steps, the wind, the trees, faint aural traces of humanity—is created live on stage by a four-member Greek ensemble using Foley techniques, the art of reproducing the sort of everyday sounds that are usually added later in film or video post-production.

Photo by Valeria Isaeva

And even though the precise and layered creation of all these sounds using the various objects that together make up the set is already captivating to watch, I found myself often tempted to close my eyes and travel through the images in my mind, I confess to Irene Fanarioti, the Greek director of the performance, who, as she explains, had full authorization from its British creators to stage it in Greece.

“That’s the goal!” she replies with a smile. “If you ever feel lost, close your eyes to find your way again,” she says about the experience of watching such an unusual performance. I tell her that, even though I wasn’t always sure what was happening at every moment, I felt that the absence of words left space for other kinds of information and emotions to emerge.

“If I took you into nature right now,” she says, “you probably wouldn’t know which bird is which, or where every sound is coming from. You’d need to give yourself time to understand. That’s what I ask from the audience, too—to let go, to give themselves time, to trust their senses. You can understand much more with your senses than with your mind.”

She adds that, while the lack of dialogue allows the audience to relax and find their own path, “everyone will still reach the same place in the end. The goal of the performance is clear—and isn’t lost, no matter which path each viewer takes.”

Created by UK-based artists Katie Mitchell, Nina Segal and Melanie Wilson, Cow/Deer is a production that invites us to reconsider our place in the world as fellow inhabitants of the Earth who exist with respect and care for one another. Photo by Valeria Isaeva.

‘This medium carries a message’

I’ve always been drawn to theatre that uses technology or digital media in inventive ways, but what I admired here was the courage—and the analogue, though equally experimental, approach—behind Cow/Deer.

Photo by Valeria Isaeva

“By using sound instead of speech,” Fanarioti says, “nothing is explained to you. The mind stretches, and there’s alertness, which is something we’re losing in 2025. Today, the easy answer, the quick fix, ChatGPT, social media—everything that feeds us ready-made information—is what people turn to. So this piece is an act that goes against that.”

“In a world where the image comes first—where if we don’t see it, we don’t believe it—this play goes against the grain and says: sit still and listen. You are invited to make your own story, in your own colors, within this soundscape; to paint your own mental picture.”

Speaking to To Vima International Edition, Fanarioti explains that what she asks of the audience is simple: “Come with an open mind. Accept that you’re going to see something new, something that can’t be logically understood. And, through that acceptance, let yourself travel through the story.”

Photo by Valeria Isaeva

A ‘More-than-Human’ World

The shared themes that run through the work of both Mitchell and Fanarioti—female experience and the “more-than-human world”—were key to their collaboration, even before Fanarioti learned that the play would be performed entirely through sound.

“That theme was my first big yes,” she says. “When I heard that the main characters are animals—a deer and a cow, both female, both at the onset of adulthood—I was immediately interested. There’s a whole backstory written for them.”

As its creators describe it, Cow/Deer is “an experiment in reorientation”—not only from speech to listening, but also from hierarchy to cooperation and from the strictly human to the wider, multi-layered world of nature.

Through sound, the audience is invited to step away from human-centered thinking and reflect on their place in the world, not as rulers but as part of a fragile, interconnected web of life. Every sound—a breath, a car, a dog’s bark—brings us closer to the animals’ perspective. We fear with them, hurt with them, share their anxiety.

“The play is about how animals perceive,” Fanarioti says. “They don’t understand words. They understand tone, energy, intention—the sound of a phrase, not its meaning.”

Photo by Valeria Isaeva

When I ask her what she hopes audiences will take away, she doesn’t hesitate.

“I think people already know what happens to animals. Studies show they suffer. And their pain is, for me, the equal of human pain. They don’t need to speak our language or share our abilities. That’s grounds enough for empathy.”

“We like to talk about justice,” she continues, “but when it comes to animals, it’s hard to be fair. I hope people will leave thinking about their responsibility—toward nature, the environment, these beings we affect every day.”

“I often ask myself: what kind of person do I want to be? Someone who stands for justice and demands it, or someone who only seeks it when it affects me? We have to decide what kind of people we want to be. I’m not saying everyone should share my view of what’s right. I just want them to ask the question.”

The performance runs at the Nikos Kourkoulos Stage of the National Theatre of Greece until January 11.

For tickets and further information please go here.