House lights down. Foot lights up. Set: 1 wooden table laid with white cloth, Props: 2 candlesticks and candles; 1 plate water; 1 cross on stand; 1 sprig basil; 1 brazier incense; 1 box matches. Enter priest, stage left. Lights candles. Six-minute monologue during which cross is dipped in water three times, basil once. Candles blown out. Exit priest, stage left. An unfamiliar, early work by Samuel Beckett? Not at all. The formal blessing at the inauguration of the new Athens College Theater on December 16 by the Reverend John Antonopoulos.
Greece’s most up-to-date and fully-equipped Center of the Drama, a one-and-a-half million dollar, 840-seat amphitheater, was made possible through a grant from the United States Agency for International Development plus a personal bequest from Irini S. Livanos arranged by her nephew, graduate and member of the Athens College Board of Trustees, George P. Livanos.
The inaugural address was given by Mrs. Margaret Papandreou. During her talk, she spoke of a certain thespian’s first public performance on stage as a masked pallbearer in The Frogs of Aristophanes, a part so small that he went unrecognized by his father, George Papandreou, who was sitting in the audience. The anecdote greatly amused the amphitheater’s capacity crowd.
Following the cutting of the red ribbon, the first professional act on the new Athens College Theater boards was presented by the Minister of Culture, Melina Mercouri, with a text by Brecht, an author most appropriate to the occasion, since many of his most popular plays were written during his political exile in the United States.
Appropriately, too, homage was paid by President of Athens College, John Summerskill, to Karolos Koun whose art theater has worldwide recognition today, and who founded the Athens College Players Association in 1929. Both President Summerskill and the offiical representative of the U.S. government, Mr. Alan Berlind, expressed the hope that the theater would become a cultural center for all Athenians. Elaborating on this, Mrs. Papandreou expressed the belief that by opening its facilities to popular theater groups, the Athens College theater would contribute to the culture of modern Greek socialism. Even so, few greater tour-de-force performances can be expected in the near future than the one which immediately followed the inaugural ceremonies. Fourteen-year-old virtuoso pianist Dimitris Sgouros at the Steinway, playing Beethoven, Chopin, Schumann and Domenico Scarlatti.
Vorres and Pierides, Imagnifici
Certainly, the major artistic events of 1982 in Athens were the series of functions which marked the openings of the Ian Vorres Museum in Paiania and the Demetris Z. Pierides Collection in Glyfada. In the lack of any public or civic museums devoted to contemporary Greek art, the opening of these two private collections to the public are benefactions of ethnic importance. Obviously, both Mr. Vorres and Mr. Pierides have assembled their collections because they believe that contemporary Greek art is of the highest quality, and their galleries dramatically demonstrate it. Yet, if one imagined that a public gallery with curators officially elected did exist, designed to show all aspects of modern Greek art, it is possible to believe that it might give an impression quite different from either of these. Impressive as both collections are in respect to plenitude, quality and splendor of presentation, they have the inestimable added distinction of being personally chosen. As a result, the collections are strikingly different, and, therefore, the Greek artist and the public are doubly rewarded. That both collectors have necessarily selected the same artists only makes the difference between them more surprising and fruitful.
To use a useful distinction – if, in this case, a far too simple one — the Vorres Museum is where the Doric spirit of modern Greek art reigns, where all is chaste and chiseled; cool and classical; lucid, abstracted and surreal. The Pierides Collection, on the other hand, is imbued with the Ionic graces; decorative and elegant; warm and colorful; detailed, figurative and expressionistic. Take two important artists, for example, Fassianos and Mytaras. In Paiania, a Mytaras gray motorcyclist riding over classical columns hangs in a room with a blue and aetherial Fassianos; in Glyfada, a Fassianos glowing with gold hangs opposite a Mytaras portrait of Depy Malamou, certainly the most chromatic personality in the Athenian cosmos. Thus, the versatility of the artist is emphasized and the viewer benefits from the individual tastes of the collectors.
A reception at the Pierides Museum on December 18 was only the most recent of those that have been held at both galleries since August. In this case, the purpose was to bring shipowners and artists together with the idea of stimulating more art shows on Greek passenger ships. It is just one example of how the Vorres and Pierides galleries are contributing to Greek culture as a whole. Greek poetry and music have been recognized abroad; it is time that the high quality of contemporary Greek art got the equal recognition it deserves. The Vorres and Pierides Collections are providing it.
The Tower by the Sea
When she died recently at the age of 89, it came as a shock to those who for years had thought of Joice Loch as a legend. She died where she had lived since,1928 in Prosphori Tower, built by the Emperor Andronikos II on the beach at Ouranoupolis, a step away from Holy Mountain.
Joice NanKivell was born in Australia, raised outback, and married the author, Sydney Loch. As reporters, they covered the Sinn Fein revolution and after World War I, they went on missions of rehabilitation to Poland and Russia before coming to Greece to work for the refugees from Anatolia. Their extraordinary adventures are related in her autobiography, A Fringe of Blue, with great feeling and liveliness.
Because the refugees at Ouranoupolis had nothing but sheep, the Lochs decided to start a cottage industry by weaving woolen rugs. Combining Sydney’s Byzantine designs and Joice’s experiments in natural dyes, the Loch rug was created which later became world-famous.
Sydney died in 1954, leaving his monument, Athos: The Holy Mountain, complete in manuscript but unrevised. This was done by his widow, and it remains one of the finest books about Greece. He was buried in the cemetery at the American Farm School in Thessaloniki, with which he was long and closely associated, and a large boulder marks his grave.
Joice had been in ill health for some time and suffered a series of strokes. She died following a self-imposed fast. Her funeral was celebrated with full Greek Orthodox ritual and she was buried at Ouranoupolis. Sydney will be disinterred and buried beside her. But what to do with the boulder? It is a problem that would have delighted the Lochs. Prosphori is haunted by a ghost with whom Joice was on cordial terms. Now there are two. Soon there will be three.
