With baggage from his six-year stint next to Stella Adler in New York and what the teacher has said - such as that "the last stage of vanity is success" - Nikos Kalamos is a modern hermit of the theater. The last ones 16 years living in the heart of nature, in Ellanion Oros in Aegina, and is confronted with texts of world literature. The creator of the Theater Nursery of Aegina, where amateurs of all ages and professions are trained, states an apprentice actor, he repairs furniture to secure a living and presents a series of monologues in Athens, after first "trying" them on the island, in a series of paradoxical spaces, such as the auditorium of the Wild Bird and Animal Sanctuary.
I started…
To learn what real theater means next to the great Stella Adler, who together with the Clermans, Strasberg and Kazan founded the Group Theater until McCarthyism stopped them in the 1930s. My studies in New York are the big station of my CV. I first met her in Hollywood in the early 80s, when I was acting in some small theaters with the little English I knew and he asked to see my work – I remember that it was a monologue that Titos Vandis had pointed out to me. And then she told me to come to New York to study text analysis at her studio. I stayed six years with Stella. Yes, she was old and had told reporters not to tell her real age. I met her when she was 93. He died 13 years later. Pass them 100 teacher.
I learned…
To be steely in the face of criticism. Adler criticized us harshly. also, he used to tell us that the last stage of vanity is success. “I want you to make your own group. Don't go to every producer and director" he told us. He hated film directors… Along with studies, I gained access to off and off Broadway theaters. I played you 18 foreign productions in New York and three in Los Angeles.
I'm back…
In Greece the 1990. Five years later I created the Theater Nursery of Aegina. I work with amateurs of all ages and classes. We had a doctor, we have teachers, people working in the Municipality of Aegina, students etc. This gives me my independence – and this I consider to be the success of the craftsman: to be independent of producers. When you have your own team, he chooses the texts he wants and has unlimited time to work. The last work we did at the Nursery was Beckett's 'Catastrophe'. To present a seven-minute play, we worked for six months.
I never forgot…
What Adler told us when she was at the theater to watch the performance of "The Lust Bus" with Marlon Brando. When asked if he has decided how he will play Kowalski, he told her: "Stella, not yet". This means that Brando, until it comes out on the board, he had at least ten options on how to play – notable, he was Stella's student and later they became lovers. Out of generosity, later, brando made up with her daughter.
I directed…
The five monologues that I present at venues such as Topos Allou or the Michalis Kakogiannis Foundation. No, I don't hate directors either, I just find that monologues give me a freedom. I take the cassock of the hieromonk and take the works wherever I want.
Consider…
That in the works I present there is what is called "invisible geometry". These are very important texts. Seven years and I didn't understand what "The Woman of Zakythos" by Dionysios Solomos wanted to say. It's a dark one, elliptical work. And the most important comment I got from soloists when I presented it in the past is that I glossed over aspects of it.
Start…
With "The Penultimate of the Monikins" by Pari Takopoulos in Topo Alou. I have presented it in the theater of Giorgos Armenis, at the Edinburgh Festival and two years ago at the London International Festival. I am also presenting "The Woman of Zakythos" at the Michalis Kakogiannis Foundation on 29, 30, 31 March and on 1, 2 and 3 April. Subsequently, in early May, I will upload Eric Boghozian's "Drinking in America" to the Michalis Kakogiannis Foundation. These are ten short monologues – a hard task, but we have been trained to play stink with color. Now I have found a new friend, the Homer. I upload Rhapsody A’ of "The Odyssey" translated by Dimitris Maronitis at the Kakogiannis Foundation in early June. End, the 2013 I will upload the work of Iros Diamantourou "A night without Sancho", also at the Kakogiannis Foundation. I will present the texts for the first time in the summer in Aegina, in a magnificent amphitheater on Hellanion Oros.
I chose…
To live close to nature, because one becomes more essential in’ her. It demystifies many things. Like death, which is an existential station. Nature is the measure of life and I live in the heart of nature, on a mountain. No man steps here, just no friend. You know, Aegina is a place of hidden people. A lot of serious people live here. It is a small Greece.
Declare…
Apprentice actor. And I don't say that out of modesty. It must be very difficult to be a professional actor in Athens. Because you might be forced to do something that doesn't represent your deepest art, to pay your rent. In order to support myself, I repair old furniture. And that's how I survived in New York. But that satisfies me because I'm doing something with my body.
Believe…
That the Greek is born for the stage. Language is a vehicle for the actor, plus it also has this huge collective memory – all the tribes have passed from this place. Fri.’ I say all this to the actors of Phytorio: "Leave Greece for a while and go live in London or Dublin, which is the best theater in the world, or in New York". I also graduated from the drama school of Vafias in Athens, but it took me three years in America to… to forget,what I had learned. We were playing, remember, with a blunt, we didn't do text analysis and the professors kept their minds on when they were going to get paid. That was their only concern.
Note…
That the world needs new heroes, new standards. Now more than ever. I realize this because I have seen performances in Athens with full houses – Fri.’ the whole crisis. Well, people are looking for something to find. His lost spirituality, perhaps. Bad lies, first we lost something else and then our money.
when and where
"The penultimate of the Monikins" by Pari Takopoulos.
Elsewhere, Cephalonia 17.
At 13, 14, 20, 21 and 28/2, at 9.30 p.m.
Information on tel. 6974 521.213
Source : tovima.gr
