He has arrived at the Zina theater since early morning. This is what happens every day. He goes to the theater two hours before the show starts, puts on classical music in the dressing room and relaxes. Or as the actors say, it gathers. “When I was little, around 13-14 years old, my brother – who is no longer alive – traveled on ships and brought me Beethoven’s Ninth on CD. I was excited. Every night, I turned it down so as not to wake the others and focused on one musical instrument, the oboe. And watching it, I too was traveling in music. I think that’s what I still do,” he explains.

A lot has changed since then in the life of Vladimiros Kyriakides, nearly 50 years later – since he does not hesitate to confess his age, even though nothing else bears witness to it. Neither his appetite for learning and knowledge, nor his development in the art of theater, nor even the use of the vocabulary he uses as he describes himself as an anarchist. He quickly clears up the vagueness of the statement, saying that he likes to cause small, quiet revolutions within himself, personal upheavals to create – even now – a better self that will be reflected in the people around him. He may be influenced by the prophetic word of Arthur Miller as he has just premiered his most famous work “Death of a Salesman” on the stage of Zina, directed by Giorgos Nanouris, with him in the iconic role of Willy Loman. Maybe not.

Vladimiros Kyriakidis always had a separate space to exist. In his youth it was deep solitude and poetry, later it was theater and writers that gave him self-confidence, self-awareness and extroversion. However, he was always guarded by an unusual kindness, which today is what he himself calls “a different way of perceiving the world”.

You have been ten years in Zina, in a stable roof. Do you love stability?

Stability is one of the good…syndromes I have. I like being in one space for a long time because it gives me the ability to organize whatever vision I may have. And because I tend to do long-term planning, five-year horizons, it is beneficial to have a roof. And I thank my producer, because I feel calm and safe as we walk together.

However, when do you seek the reversal?

Even in my everyday life. I am not a person who can live in the habit of things. I try that in my personal life as well. I want to create surprises for the people around me, since I ask the same from them. Otherwise, I will languish in boredom. This is also transferred as a practice in my art: Whether I’m doing comedy or drama I try to bring the viewers in front of surprises. And so I believe that you also practice your means of expression. First, I try to surprise myself by creating small revolutions. These nourish us and cultivate our sensitivity, esthetics, perception. And I’m talking about small revolutions within you, because they are the first ones we forget to nurture. There are many things happening inside us that we ignore because social rules force us to do so. However, we need internal nourishment to bring better results. The more we leave the inside untrained, the more we will not know how to manage our life outside.

Give me an example of a “small revolution”.

I’m selfish. And as actors manage borrowed emotions we can identify the same behavior in ourselves. So, as a selfish person, I annoy some people. So what should I do? To create a slippery slope for myself, to make a reversal and see how one would behave in the same situation, without selfishness. It takes effort, but I can do it. Another example? There are people who flirt all the time. Obviously, this will bother my partner, so it’s something I can control. And there I turn things upside down.

I mean?

I try to discover my own characteristics that I am unaware of, I like to investigate myself, to find new ways of reaction and that all the explosions that happen inside me do not manifest with anger. I prefer to have companions in these small, humble revolutions that my soul dictates to me, not to create enemies.

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