Lula Anagnostaki was one of the most important figures of post-war domestic drama
On this day, October 8, 2017, the iconic playwright has passed away Loula Anagnostakiwho, through her unique, almost forty-year presence in the local theatrical life, left an indelible mark on Greek post-war dramaturgy.
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Born on December 13, 1928, in Thessaloniki, Loula Anagnostaki graduated from the city’s Law School. She made her first appearance in the theater with the “Trilogy of the City”, which was staged as a single performance by the Karolos Koon Art Theater on May 15, 1965, directed by Karolos Koon. With the name of the first-time dramatist to be added to the list of great “discoveries” of the emblematic theater person, double that of Iakovos Kampanellis, Dimitris Kehaidis and Giorgos Skourtis.
The “City Trilogy”
The “trilogy” includes the one act “The Overnight”the story of a young teenager who, in a fruitless search for her missing immigrant father, is invited to spend the night in the apartment of a man who has also “escaped” from work and wife.
The one act “The city”where a couple lure lonely men to their apartment for dinner, seducing and ultimately rejecting them, until one of the “guests” upends the “routine.”
And finally, the one act “The Parade”the story of two imprisoned brothers, Ari and Zoe, who, thinking they are expecting a joyful event, instead witness, from the window of their home, the brutality of the state’s repressive apparatus and are overcome by the fear of falling themselves victims of it.
In these first works of the author we have the appearance of some motifs, which will concern her later dramaturgy as well. The dramatic closed space (prison and shelter together) creates a claustrophobic feeling, with the unknown outside world, which is perceived by the dramatic characters, mainly through sounds but also the entry of “strangers” towards them, presenting itself as particularly threatening . The tumultuous recent history is reconstructed and experienced, now, through a purely individual/personal perspective, with the past depicted as an internal trauma in the psyche of the heroes. The violence of power, the post-war sense of defeat, impasse, guilt, confused memories, fear, subjective reality are just some of the themes found in her early work.
Other collaborations with the Karolo Koun Art Theatre
Most of the works of Loula Anagnostaki’s first period were first staged at the Karolo Koun Art Theatre, whose underground space emphasized the sense of claustrophobia and internal exhaustion of the dramatic figures.
Thus, the groundbreaking director presented, in 1972, in the context of the thirtieth anniversary of the founding of the emblematic troupe, the work “Antonio or the Message”, where the outline of a fragmented world, which is governed by a lack of communication, silences, inadequate information, individual existential tortures that reflect a more general crisis of social values, to some extent reminds the Theater of the Absurd.
This was followed by “Victory” (1978), “Cassetta” (1982), “The Sound of the Weapon” (1987), which is Koon’s last directorial work. Finally, in 1995, the Art Theater presented “Far Journey”, directed by Mimi Kouyoumtzis.
The fleeing tendencies of the dramatic persons lead to migration or the transition to unfamiliar spaces, around which the problematic of alienation and the absence of solidarity is depicted due to the meteoric personal identity of the heroes that prevents them from joining already unfriendly environments.
Individuals give their own subjective interpretations to “reality”, which is presented fluidly, forming, at the same time, their own arbitrary subjective identity, as an act of freedom and resistance against oppressive social conventions and as an attempt to “enlighten” their sad existence . The initiative of this personal meaning-making of the world and the self, although seemingly healing invisible wounds, leads to a further breakdown of interpersonal relationships, loneliness, lack of mutual understanding and confusion, the latter skillfully reflected in the author’s “sets” of complex, multifaceted scenes.
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Source :Skai
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