Modern Greek Theater, Its History and Theory

Abstract

Children’s theater in Greece had no advocacy for a long time and was neglected. Playwrights believed that children’s theater did not challenge their skills, actors felt that it did not engage their talents, critics thought that it offered boring or socially naïve entertainment, while the state government was indifferent to its needs. Several Greek playwrights and actors, however, who were influenced by some successful West European explorations into children’s theater, contributed to the revitalization of children’s theater in Greece. They steered away from naïvete and didacticism and aimed at bridging the world of technology with the world of fantasy. Didacticism did not disappear altogether, but now co-existed with poetry and imagination, stimulating the thought and sensibilities of young audiences. At the same time, children’s theater marginalized the presumed seriousness of the adults who escorted the children to the theater.

Between 1750 and 1850 theater in Europe was gradually modernized, industrialized, and professionalized as two trends were becoming dominant. The first trend began with the polarization of the terms "drama" and "theater." The ancient Greek word "drama" came to mean "written play" and the ancient Greek word "theater" came to mean "staged performance." The second trend began with publications such as August Wilhelm von Schlegel's Course of Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature (1812), treating theoretical issues as "history."¹ These trends were carried to Greece by the wind of the European Enlightenment and, in 1833, were sown in Nafplion and later in Athens where King Otto with his 3,500 Bavarian troops, his three Bavarian Regents, and his numerous Greek lackeys set up court and began modifying the nation state's institutional infrastructure, including education and entertainment, modeled on conservative, elitist Western European models.²

The controversial distinction between "drama" and "theater" and the growing malignant trend of history framing the domain of theory eventually shaped the way modern Greek plays and performances were studied and taught. "Drama" became a term that refers to the author-reader interaction through a written text which, depending on the playwright's skills and intentions, arrives at, or departs from, established dramatic conventions. "Theater," on the other hand, became the term that refers to actor-audience interaction through a performance which, depending on the skills and intentions of directors, designers, and actors, conforms to, or deviates from, established theatrical conventions.

The systems of meaning that supported the writing of plays and the mounting of performances in modern Greece, but also controlled the work of Greek playwrights, directors, designers, actors, critics, and scholars, have been a long-term research interest of mine.³ When I guest-edited the first special issue on modern Greek drama published in the May 1996 issue of the Journal of Modern Greek Studies, I also had plans to guest-edit a second special issue in ten years, this time on modern Greek theater. I intended the two issues to serve as signposts that would help anyone concerned with the development of modern Greek drama and theater to assess its itinerary (not necessarily its "progress") and direction (not necessarily its "perspective"). When notions of "progress" and "perspective" in Greece and elsewhere were offered in hindsight or with foresight, they always assigned a historical teleology, usually of a nationalist or imperialist kind, to any real or imaginary itinerary and direction.

My plan for the second special issue materialized at the end of my sojourn in Athens where I had spent six months in 2003 collecting data for a manuscript on the theory and practice of Greek cinema in the twentieth century. In December of 2003 Professor Walter Puchner asked me to consider co-authoring a book with him on the history of modern Greek theater after I had finished writing my book on Greek cinema. I was honored by his invitation and returned the courtesy by inviting him to co-edit the second special issue on modern Greek theater with me.

Walter Puchner and I then discussed the call for papers, which invited scholarly essays for a special issue on "Greek Theater, Its Theory and History from the Late...