In life one must be useful
Stefanos Linaios and Elli Fotiou, with forty years of theatrical career, return to the stage with one of their greatest hits
Interview with Iulis Eptakoilis
They are a rare couple. Together, fifty years in life and forty in the theater. With common aesthetics, goals and opinions. With unquenchable passion that overflows on stage, with that unique sense of debt that dictates you to constantly give something, The, what can you, and take a stand, regardless of cost. Unpretentiously simple and measured, righteous, sincere, real ones, fighters, with an excess of love for life, for the theater, for people.
This year, Stefanos Linaios and Elli Fotiou decided to re-stage one of their big hits at the Alpha Theater, the, unfortunately, ever-present work by Dario Fo “I do not pay… I don't pay…», giving us the occasion for an ep’ discussion of all matters with two people who have left a bright mark on the life and art of the place.
– How have you managed to stay together fifty years in life and forty in the theater?; What thread binds you?;
Elli Fotiou: Stefanos and I are completely different characters. She is enthusiastic and outgoing, I am grounded and low-key. This opposition has brought us many times into conflict, but i love him very much. I have always loved him and I know that, what he does is out of his love? and the desire to fix the world, γι’ this sometimes seems mean to others.
Stefanos Linaios: I don't want to fix the world. I just learned from my family from a young age that one should be useful in life. Both as a person and as a professional. Especially the spiritual man is not the office man, but the one who leans, is listened to, talks to the world. Some standards, from singers and footballers to politicians must also be role models in their private lives. Otherwise you create a despair p’ those who follow you. I have felt it with people I admired and when I met them in person I was disappointed. Because the majority of people are shaped by what they see, and, unfortunately, a very small percentage is formed with the substance, with what he reads.
– The fact that the theater space, of the show in general, he is competitive and with large doses of ambition, it makes a relationship even more difficult;
Ε. F.: Some say that two people who do the same profession cannot coexist. I don't believe it. We have the same quests, the same purposes, the same timetables and it is very natural to proceed along the same drawn line. All this, sure, they apply if you have found the right person. I found him. And I must confess that Stefanos helped me a lot both in life and in the theater. When I met him I was a child, completely inexperienced.
St. L.: I pass Elli 12 years. I wanted a man to walk with. My role model was Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh. In two – three girls I had met, unfortunately, the outside had nothing to do with the inside! Until at some point a little girl comes 18 years, Elli, on the steps of the Moussouri theater and that was it: I was amused as soon as I saw it. Simply because I immediately understood that I could not play with Elli, I trained her until I was sure she was my man.
continuity … trans.kathimerini.gr
