Supervisors info:
Θεόδωρος Γραμματάς,Καθηγητής ,ΠΤΔΕ,ΕΚΠΑ
Summary:
«ΤΗΕ Greek Theater from the Period of the German Occupation and the Civil war to the first post-civil years»
Τhe present work deals with the Greek Theater from the period of Occupation, the Civil War and the first post-civil years. The Time Limits I'm trying to approach are from 1941 to 1957, when a new period begins for the Hellenic Post-war Theater with the introduction of the neo-ethography and the performance The Courtyard of miracles by Iakovos Kambanellis (1957), from the Theater Technis to directed by Karolos Koun. The criteria that determine the dramatic production and composition of the theaters in the above periods are related to historical and political developments. In this theatrical journey there is a special reference to a group of writers who either took part in the Civil War or whose works are indirectly mentioned in the events but the historical conditions of the country did not favor the introduction of such a drama and the emergence of the similar of theaters.
The historical and political developments that our nation receives from the period of German Occupation influence the theater and determine the subsequent course of post-war theater. Resistance, interventions and constant audits of theater in theatrical activity, as well as the censorship of the era, have a distructive impact on all theater people, especially among EAM members and other resistance groups with prisons, exiles. However, with the Liberation of '44 the theater's engagementin the struggle of resistance will cultivate a demand for quality elevation and will put the seeds for a theater which, after the post-conflict reality, will become more intrusive by focusing on issues inherent in political and social reality.
The period of the Civil War will divide the theater into a two-pillar between "serious" and "commercial" with the return of commercial companies to the light-hearted choices of the pre-war period and the brief progressive initiative of some left-wing theaters and decentralized However, the constant "persistence" of the theater after the Civil War in the constant search for Greekness, national identity and the more general apostolic character that took for the left the strengthening of the Greek dramaturgy prevented the contact with the foreign dramaturgy and bequeathed to the Greek theater evenscenes that follow the spirit of politics and social reality.
So, as the period of the Resistance showed an ascendant course for the later theatrical activity of the place, ideological fanaticism and civil terrorism impeded the evolution of the theatrical movement with the tendency to return to the patterns of the past.
However, the constant "persistence" of the theater after the Civil War in the constant search for Greekness, national identity and the more general apostolic character that took for the left the strengthening of the Greek dramaturgy prevented the contact with the foreign dramaturgy and bequeathed to the Greek theater even after 1955, the aesthetic and ideological axes of the Civil War, cutting off the quests and contacts with the European dramaturgy. Even the few poems of post-war poetry (Kazantzakis, Theotokas, Karelli) will remain on the sidelines, with little evidence of growth.
Summing up after the Greek Civil War period, except for a few cases of dramaturgy with references to the theater of Paradise and some follow-ups to the dramaturgy of earlier ethographical quests, the only kind that is developed is modern social realism. The image formed for the Greek post-war theater is its separation into socially and politically militant denouncing the social injustice and inequality addressed to the public, and on the other hand, by staying faithful in the parameter of conservative vision, it cultivates the vision of an urban, social reality.
Keywords:
The Greek Theater during German Occupation Historical and Theatrical Review:(Censorship, exilio, persecution of left-wings actors.) The Theater Study by Vasilis Rotas. Giorgos Kotzioulas and the Theater EPON in Thessalia. Stages of the Left and the Decentralization. Adamantios lemos-Theater. Greek Folk Theater of Manos Katrakis. The Art Theater by Karolos Koun. The writers and the dramatic production in the years of the Civil War:(Notis Pergialis, Alexis Damianos,Giorgos Sevastikoglou.) Effects from the play Blood Wedding by Lorca in Iakovos Kabanellis and Notis Pergialis.
