HE WHO MUST DIE – PLAY BASED ON KAZANTZAKIS NOVEL TO BE STAGED IN GREATER TORONTO AREA

By James Karas

What was the first modern Greek play to be produced in the United States?

Your chance of getting that right is less likely than winning the next $50 million lottery. There are some exceptions of, course, especially if you are the son of the man who produced the play.

The play is called He Who Must Die and it is an adaptation of Nikos Kazantzakis’s great novel Christ Re-Crucified. It was staged at the Yale School of Drama in 1960. The adapter of the play was Michael Antonakes. The play was produced again in 1972 at Salem State University, in Salem, Massachusetts and Eleni Kazantzakis, Nikos’s widow was in attendance.

Skip forty years and land in Toronto (well, OK, Richmond Hill!) where you will find He Who Must Die being produced by an ambitious and talented young man named Dean Antonakes, the son of Michael.

The production of a play, any play, may not seem like a momentous event. But consider the following: Modern Greek drama in Toronto, where the largest number of Greek-Canadians reside, is almost non-existent. Nancy Athan-Mylonas keeps the theatrical flame flickering as the Artistic Director of the Greek Community of Toronto’s Nefeli group. She has produced a version of Kazantzakis’s Zorba the Greek but her focus is on light comedy done mostly by young people for an audience that prefers song and dance to serious theatre.

After Nancy, the desert.

Dean, who in real life runs a software company, is producing He Who Must Die in order to introduce Canadians to a play by Kazantzakis and to pay homage to his father on the 40^th anniversary of the last production of the work.

No production of a play can ever be classified as a one-person operation but this venture comes awfully close. Dean has spearheaded just about everything about the production from the idea, to contacting Greek organizations, to finding a theatre, to raising funds and to keeping everything flowing,. His official title is Artistic and Music Director of the company.

The play is directed by Andrea Emmerton who has more than 25 years of experience in directing plays. 

Christ Re-Crucified (sometimes translated as The Greek Passion) is set in a Greek village under Ottoman rule in 1922. The villagers are putting on a play that will re-enact about Christ’s crucifixion. At the same time, a group of refugees arrives at the outskirts of the village seeking help. As the title suggests, the result is an enthralling story.

“The play forces people to face their own Christian values” said Dean in a recent interview. It is done entirely in English and he hopes that young people, including children, will be exposed to the play and to Kazantzakis in general.

The play has a Narrator and mezzo-soprano Ariana Chris has accepted the role. Dean considers this a happy coup. Chris is well-known in the operatic and Greek community and is “a major plus” to the production.

“All of the speaking roles have been cast to experienced stage actors, eleven of whom are Greek-Canadians. We are still looking for ten adult male extras,” according to Dean.

The production will feature music composed by Paul Demakis and played by famed instrumentalist Pavlo on guitar and George Vasilakos on bouzouki and baglama. Samples of the music are available on the production company’s website (see below).

The Antonakes family has deep roots …in the United States. Dean’s grandfather served in the U.S. Army in World War I and his father served in World War II. Any ideas of assimilation or disappearance of Greek roots is dispelled quickly by Dean.

His father Michael taught in the English Department of Salem State University from 1965 until his retirement in 1992. His specialty: Greek literature, especially Kazantzakis. In fact, Michael’s doctoral thesis and much of his writing are centered on Kazantzakis. He also translated Kazantzakis’s Russia: A Chronicle of Three Journeys in the Aftermath of the Revolution with Thanasis Maskaleris.

He studied for one year in Athens and has written, directed and acted in over 40 productions, according to his son. In fact, he is a member of Actors Equity, the union of professional actors.

When son Dean was getting ready to join the matrimonial sweepstakes, the Antonakeses took no chances: they shipped him off to an AHEPA convention where he found, Nina, a nice Canadian girl of Greek origin. She took no chances with him being swallowed by Americana and brought him to the safe haven of Pickering, Ontario. Now she gets to do the marketing for the play.

Professor Antonakes will give a lecture entitled "A Tribute to the Life of Nikos Kazantzakis" on Saturday October 13, 2012, 1:00 pm at the Gold Room of the North York Memorial Community Hall, North York City Centre, 5100 Yonge Street, Toronto.

Dean makes no secret of his enthusiasm for the play and the production. He does not hesitate to classify the staging as the Greek cultural event of the decade, exclamation mark included.

That truthfulness of that assessment will depend on higher judgment, more theatrical experience and unambiguous objectivity. No, I do not mean the audience. I mean his father.  

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He Who Must Die by Michael Antonakes based on Christ Re-Crucified by Nikos Kazantzakis will be performed six times between January 4 and 6, 2013 at the Richmond Hill Centre for the Preforming Arts, 10268 Yonge St. Richmond Hill, Ont. For more information go to http://www.dmajorproductions.com/ or 905-787-8811

 

 

GOD LOVES CAVIAR BUT DOES HE LOVE IANNIS SMARAGDIS EVEN MORE?

                                                                    Iannis Smaragdis
by James Karas

“EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE.” That is the subtitle of God Loves Caviar, a film directed by Iannis Smaragdis that will premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. Perhaps not coincidentally it is a phrase that describes one of Smaragdis’ most cherished convictions.

The film tells the story of Ioannis Varvakis a Greek pirate who made his fortune in Russia selling caviar and eventually became a great philanthropist during Greece’s War of Independence. He gave all for love.

Smaragdis is in Toronto for the premiere of his film. Asked how he chose the subject of the almost unknown Varvakis for his film he replies that it was a gift or largesse from a Higher Power.  He believes that a Higher Power or an Ultimate Source gave him the opportunity and he went about executing it.  Smaragdis also believes that if you want something badly enough and seek it, it will be granted to you. He considers himself to be the messenger or an intermediary of the Higher Power. In practical terms, the idea for doing a film about Varvakis was given to him by former student of the Varvakio High School of Athens (which was originally funded by the film’s hero and still bears his name). But according to Smaragdis the former student was also a mere messenger.

                                               Sebastian Koch as Varvakis

 

Smaragdis was attracted to the story because he considers Varvakis to be the prototype of the Greek of the Diaspora who leaves the motherland and returns wiser and perhaps richer. The Greek goes on a great Journey, like Odysseus, and returns to help those whom he left behind. He does not consider Varvakis as merely a historical figure or a man of the future but a Greek of the present, perhaps the ideal Greek of today and the best hope for Greece. 

The Greeks are a great people with a long history and the present crisis is a temporary setback from which they will emerge in a few years stronger than ever, according to Smaragdis. They have come a long way and they have a long way to go, he says with pride. He believes that directors and producers and in fact all artists have a duty to bring out the best in people especially when a country is going through a crisis. He considers God Loves Caviar as fulfilling such a responsibility.

This is Smaragdis’ third appearance at TIFF. He was first here in 1996 with Cavafy and returned in 2008 with El Greco, the award-winning telling of the life of his fellow Cretan. In fact Smaragdis was born about three hundred meters from the house where El Greco was born. El Greco is probably the single film seen by some half of the population of Greece  thus making it the most watched Greek film. One million, two hundred thousand tickets were sold at theatres alone and the rest of the viewers saw it on DVDs, he states proudly. Then he adds that this was despite the fact that most Greek critics gave it an emphatic thumbs down.

He knew that he will make God Loves Caviar even before he started shooting El Greco. The Message had arrived. Asked what problems he had in making the film, he replies that he had only three: money, money and money. There were four delays while filming the scenes with Catherine Deneuve alone, all related to the shortage of funds. But if the messenger did not come with a cheque, the Higher Power did grant luck to Smaragdis. He was able to find private investors who together with the help of the Greek Film Centre, the film was finally completed at a cost of €6.5 million. It is the most expensive Greek film ever made. The previous record, at €6.2 million, was held by El Greco.

Smaragdis uses actors from six countries starting with the German Sebastian Koch as Varvakis. No one could have done the role better than Koch, Smaragdis states with utter conviction. John Cleese was a comic riot and Catherine Deneuve is such a star that the cast and crew started applauding instinctively when she walked on the scene in her costume as Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia. He goes even further in his tribute: he credits the actors with wanting to help Greece which is generally getting a battering from all sides.

He speaks with devotion and admiration about the music composer Minos Matsas and with sheer enthusiasm about directing the film despite all the difficulties.

He cannot disclose what his next project will be. As an intermediary, he will no doubt be given the message or his “prayer” will be answered. There is no doubt that a Messenger is out there ready to deliver the good news.

For now the Messenger can find him in Toronto where God Loves Caviar will premiere on Thursday, September 13 and will be shown again on Friday and Saturday.

But He should not try to see the film – all tickets have been presold. Then again, He should never be pessimistic – the recipient of His message will remind him that Everything is Possible.

NANCY ATHAN-MYLONAS: Artistic Director - EAST AND WEST OF SUEZ

By James Karas

On October 15, 2011, Nancy Athan-Mylonas received the CEGA Award for Education from the American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association (AHEPA). CEGA is the acronym for Celebrating Excellence in Greek Achievement. The Award is in recognition of her “nurturing of seven generations of young talent” in “Greek traditional and modern dances, dance theatre, ballet and mime.”

The article that follows was published in The Greek Press of December 23, 2004. I felt that it is worth posting now without any changes.


The second floor of the Polymenakion Cultural Centre behind Toronto’s St. Dimitrios Church is a large hall, good for meetings, dances and other cultural events. Once a year a raised platform is put in, stands holding some four hundred people are installed and the unprepossessing room becomes a theatre. Calling it inadequate would be the politest thing one can say about the place as a home for drama. But don’t tell Nancy Athan-Mylonas that. She is the Artistic Director of the Greek Community of Toronto and in her eyes that space is as good as Epidaurus, Drury Lane or the Comédie Francaise.

In the past 12 years she has staged some thirty productions ranging from half-hour dance presentations welcoming dignitaries to full plays by Euripides, Aristophanes, Lorca and Moliere. Her main focus however is Greek dramatists and she has directed such plays as O Agapitikos tis Voskospoulas, Maroula’s Luck, and Golfo. She is now rehearsing Nikos Kazantzakis’s Zorba the Greek in a dramatization by Michael Vitopoulos.

All her work is done with amateurs and volunteers. Her talent pool is second and third generation Greek-Canadians for most of whom Greek is, at best, a second language. She has to put them through the paces of not only learning and comprehending their lines but also brushing up on their accents. And then she has to direct them in the play. Most of the instructions are given in English.

Who is this lady with the passion and the vision for Greek theatre in Toronto? Nancy Mylonas (the Athan or Athanassopoulos part of the name will come later) was not born in Greece, she has never lived there and she never even went to fulltime Greek school. She is that paradoxical but quintessential child of the Diaspora with a huge difference. Despite her cosmopolitan upbringing on several continents, she has remained Greek to the core.

Before World War II, her father, George Mylonas, migrated from Mytiline to Athens. He wanted to seek adventure so he hopped on an outgoing ship in Piraeus. The ship, as it turned out, was headed for Egypt, and the stowaway was kept on board because he could bake Greek sweets for the captain. He eventually married, settled in Suez, opened a big Greek sweets bakery and prospered. He sent his daughter Nancy to a French school where she fell in love with classical dancing and mime in addition to learning French. Nancy spoke Greek at home, French at school and Arabic on the street.

The political situation in Egypt under Nasser was untenable for foreigners and Nancy, at age 16, emigrated to Sydney, Australia. She continued her studies in classical dance and mime and joined a Greek theatrical group under Chrysostomos Mantouridis whom she remembers as a great director. Afterwards she established her own school where she taught classical dance and mime. In addition she worked in stage, film and television. She was the fragile Laura in Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie as well as the earthier Eliza in My Fair Lady in addition to numerous appearances on television and documentary films.

In 1989 she married Christos Athanassopoulos, the commercial attaché at the Greek Consulate in Sydney. Christos added the Athan to her last name and, in 1991, he was transferred to Toronto. Nancy came with him and she got a job as Executive Assistant to the board of directors of The Greek Community of Metropolitan Toronto and plunged into theatrical work. She started teaching dance and theatre for the Board of Education’s Greek programme at Wilkinson Public School and came across one of those rare, eye-popping discoveries - there was an incredible amount of untapped talent in our community.

She asked The Greek Community for permission to form a theatre group. The initial reaction to her idea was less than enthusiastic. Her woven clothes earned her the moniker “tsouvallou” (something between a bag lady and someone who does not make The Ten Best Dressed list) and the idea of staging plays raised fears of her putting a fez on the Community’s metaphorical head which translates neatly as splashing red ink all over the financial statements. She was prepared to do the whole thing on a voluntary basis and promised to break even, she said in a recent interview.

She was eventually given the green light and went on to create a theatre group. She advertised and hundreds of applicants showed up. She accepted only thirty. This led to the founding of The Nefeli Community Dance Theatre. She later added the Ellinakia dance group for young children and established The Community Theatre Nefeli. Hundreds of children and youngsters have learned dancing and been exposed to the theatre by Nancy. They have been able to recreate scenes from the Greek War of Independence to village life in 19th century Greece, from 20th century Athenian aristocracy to 17th century Parisian aspirations to nobility.

Her first production was Chere, O Chere Efeftheria (Hail, Freedom) based on poetry about the Greek War of Independence compiled by Michael Vitopoulos. In 1993, she staged Michael Vitopoulos’s Canada, My Ithaca and took the production to a theatrical competition in Greece. There were sixty entries in the competition ranging from elite schools in Greece to groups from Australia, Cyprus, England and other European countries. The Toronto group won first prize. Looking back, Nancy feels that the success came almost too soon but a triumph is a triumph and there was no looking back after that. She won two more first prizes in competitions at the University of Crete. One was for The Poet of Freedom, a production based on the poetry of Greece’s National Poet, Dionysios Solomos, and the other for Children of the Flame a theatrical extravaganza written by Greek-Australian poet Sophia Catharios.

The playwright’s text is frequently no more than a rough guide for Nancy. If the play calls for a cast of ten, she will put thirty people on the stage. If the script does not call for singing or dancing, Nancy corrects the omission by putting in singing and dancing. Lorca’s Blood Wedding, for example, does not require dancing or clarinet music, not unless Nancy is directing it that is. She is unapologetic about what she does. She needs to involve as many people as possible in each production and create humour and generate energy to keep the amateur players and the equally amateur audience entertained. Besides, she says, the Chorus was an essential part of Ancient Greek tragedy and what she does is provide a connection to the works of the classical tragedians. But she was completely faithful to Spiros Peresiadis’s Golfo, she points out. He had provided all the comic characters and opportunities for singing and dancing that she needed.

But, according to Nancy, the best is yet to come. She has begun an ambitious project whose aim is to capture the vanishing culture of the Greek immigrants in Canada. There are memories, traditions, customs and folklore that she wants to record and create theatrical presentations from the raw material. She is calling the project To Sentouli tis Yiayias (Grandmother’s Hope Chest) and she is mobilizing teachers and other volunteers to collect the information from immigrants from every corner of Greece and provide the Community with invaluable archives.

The Greek Community has probably seen more theatrical productions during Nancy’s tenure as Artistic Director than it had in all the years since its establishment in 1911 to her arrival in 1991. A proper theatre will be built in the new Hellenic Cultural Centre and her energy is not abating. Of course, there are plenty of fezes but they are on the heads of youngsters on stage or parading on national holidays and never in the financial statements.

ARIS ATHANASOPOULOS – POETRY RECITAL, SUBMARINE SANDWICHES AND ACTING

Part of the cast of the Toronto production of The Railway Childre - Aris is second from the right. Photo by Cylla von Tiedemann

By James Karas

When Aris Athanasopoulos was 10 years old, he had to recite a poem at his school’s Christmas concert. The poem was in Greek and his mother, like all good Greek mothers, told him to make sure he had memorized it. He assured her that he had.

On the date of the show, he strutted on the stage and recited the first word of the poem and froze. He had forgotten the whole thing. But he had taken a small precaution. He had stuffed a copy of the poem in his pocket. After a brief, terrifying moment he said “Hold it,” reached into his pocket, uncrumpled the piece of paper and proceeded to recite the poem.

That was some fifteen years ago. Now the budding young actor knows his lines (but still takes precautions) and is presently appearing as the Superintendent in The Railway Children at the Roundhouse Theatre in Toronto.

The railway and long distance travelling are appropriate metaphors for Aris. His parents emigrated from villages near Kalamata, in the southern Peloponnese, Greece and ended up running a restaurant in Elliot Lake. They returned to Toronto when Aris was two and like so many Greek immigrants continued to run a restaurant.

Aris graduated from York University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in acting in 2007. His father wanted him to become a doctor or a lawyer or an accountant, the latter two professions being more useful for his Mr. Submarine franchise but Aris had other ideas.

You don’t get to go Argentina for five days to shoot a commercial for a credit company if you are running a submarine sandwich shop.

Nor do you go to Poland and Austria in a production of George F. Walker’s Theatre of the Film Noir directed by Miroslaw Polatynski. Aris did and played Bernard, one of the major roles in the play.

Aris has done Shakespeare for young audiences with the Classical Theatre Project – Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream - and appreciates the difference between rose and iambic pentameters. The Superintendant in The Railway Children stands at the end of the platform/ stage and must project his voice so that he can be heard at the other end.

He has tasted acting for television in the cop series Rookie Blue and will do the voice over in the animated serial Redakai: Conquer the Kairu.

He is continuing to take acting lessons from David Rotenberg at the Pro Actors Lab n Toronto.

“I will probably do it for the rest of my life” he said in a recent interview at The Roundhouse Theatre.

He wants to land roles in movies. He has already spent time in Los Angeles scouting for opportunities.

Doing movies is a matter of extremes, according to Aris. “Acting in a film is like trying to capture lightning in a bottle” he says, “because you only have to get it right once.”

“In the theatre, you need to construct a performance that you can repeat on a nightly basis.” In fact, he has to construct his role in The Railway Children eight times a week with only Mondays off.

Many actors have difficulty making ends meet and they can be found serving at tables or making lattes in expensive coffee shops – after getting the appropriate training, of course.

If the need ever arises, Aris will not need any training for a pay-the-bills alternate career.

“Can you make a submarine sandwich?” I ask.

“I can do a lot more than make a sandwich,” he replies. “I can run a Mr. Submarine shop.” And quickly adds: “Let’s hope I never have to do it.

And if he ever does and forgets how to make a super-sub, he will no doubt have the instructions written on a piece of paper and crumpled in his front pocket – just in case.

Aris has played enough Shakespearean roles and had enough training to know how to enunciate iambic pentameters. He is even ready to recite Greek poetry but, alas, he has yet to receive an invitation to do that.

EUGENIA DERMENTZIS – MEZZO SOPRANO READY FOR THE PLUNGE

By James Karas

Eugenia Dermentzis has been ready to take the plunge for a long time. No, she is not a swimmer or a diver but a mezzo-soprano who has been preparing for the metaphoric immersion into performing for well over a decade. That is a long time for a woman who is only in her mid-twenties. Now, the pretty, slender singer with the body (and ambition) of a dancer is ready.

Not that she has ever been off the stage, it seems. The desire, or is it a permanent viral infection to belt out songs, started in grade school, she told me recently over breakfast. By grade eight, the illness had become serious enough for her to start taking singing lessons – and piano lessons, and dance lessons.

By grade 11, the Markham, Ontario (outside of Toronto) native had refined her ambitions and what was an apparent desire in childhood became a necessity in youth – she had to become a performer; she needed to be on stage.

Eugenia’s roots lie in the north-western corner of Greece and the musical background of her family can be fairly summed up at zero. In classic form, her paternal grandfather emigrated from Skopia, Florina in the 1950’s and opened a restaurant. He later went into the restaurant supply business and Eugenia’s parents are still running that enterprise.

After graduating from Unionville High School, Eugenia attended the University of Western Ontario where she got a Bachelor of Music degree and a Masters of Music in Literature and Performance. At UWO she dipped her toes in the opera performance pool by singing in Puccini’s Suor Angelica. She also sang in The Magic Flute, The Merry Widow and got to do a scene from The Marriage of Figaro as Cherubino. She loves mezzo pants roles and they are a favourite stomping ground for that voice range.

A career in opera is not easy to achieve by any stretch of the imagination. Eugenia has performed numerous times on the banks of the main stream while getting ready for the big break. In addition to the roles she sang while at university, she has performed in various regional centers. She sang in Janacek’s The Cunning Little Vixen at the Banff Opera as Theatre, in The Magic Flute at York Summer Festival and Opera Nuova, was a featured soloist twice with Toronto Operetta Theatre and sang Enrichetta in I Puritani with Opera in Concert.

                                                       Eugenia Dermentzis as La Zia Principessa in Suor Angelica
 The ultimate role that she wants to do: Carmen. It is the perhaps the ultimate role for a mezzo combing extraordinary vocal and physical demands and opportunities for singing and dancing. It is a role for a singer, a dancer and an actor, a complete performer, in other words and this is how Eugenia sees herself.

She will come close to doing Carmen this spring with Ottawa’s Pellegrini Opera but only as an understudy. Before that she will sing in the chorus of Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito in Opera Atelier’s production in April. In the summer she will be in St. John’s Newfoundland for a part in Dido and Aeneas at the Opera on the Avalon Festival.

This week she will sing the role of Mariana in Luisa Fernanda, a zarzuela by Moreno Torroba that is getting its Canadian premiere in a production by the redoubtable Toronto Operetta Theatre.

Eugenia is nothing if not passionate about her career choice. “I live to be able to act” she says as if there is nothing else that she could possibly do. For her the act of performing is life itself.

“You want to enjoy the art of performing and not just be in the art” she says via Stanislavsly. She has a need to express herself, to create and, ultimately, grow.

If a career in opera does not pan out, do you have an alternate plan? I ask.

There is only one plan and one path as far as Eugenia is concerned. Plan A is to perform and she intends to stick by that plan – there is no plan B.

She has a teaching certificate and she occasionally teaches … make that PERFORMS in classes in York Region.

When you live to be able to act and sing and dance, the whole world becomes your stage, as someone said, and there is no other place for you to stand except on stage. That seems to be Eugenia Dermentzis’s world.