Part One: The Professors Have Souls Too…

If you do not know it yet, it’s time to learn that some professors, despite the general downgrading of the educator’s role in our times, where the media savagery reigns, insist  on giving their very soul to their profession.

This fact is systematically overlooked by the state and distorted under the pressure of brutal labour negotiations. I am referring, specifically, to professors specializing in the arts who are paid by the hour and are employed by the theatre department of the Iraklion School of Arts.

This summer the department staged two theatrical shows in the Iraklion Prefecture – Ano Vathia  and Poros – with the cooperation and decisive contribution of the theatre professors that work at the Iraklion School of Arts as paid-by-the-hour teachers. This is quite unacceptable, as it debases the role of an educator.

The first stage show was Agamemnon from the Omma Studio theatre in collaboration with Domenico Castaldo’s (Turin, Italy) Workshop for the Continuous Research of the Actor’s Art.

It concerned the first work of the still surviving trilogy, titled Oresteia by Aeschylous. The objective is for all three parts of the trilogy to be presented on stage in the next three years. That is to say, apart from Agamemnon, which is on stage now, the Choifores and Evmenides are also scheduled to appear.

The director, Antonis Diamantis, a-paid-by-the-hour professor at the Iraklion School of Arts, says among other things: “… We approached the text in a ritualistic way, trying for the action to encompass a code of ceremony.  And the dancers and tragic heroes are presented as archetypes because it’s a tragedy, which is the relation of man and right, the relation of man-woman, the pathos-learning (knowledge through pain).

“These are meanings which survive throughout the eons and provoke. Ross Daly’s music was invaluable, as he follows Minoan paths in creating mysterious sounds, which seem to emanate from an era of prophesies and divinations…”

The production impressed all with its combination of austerity and multi-level completeness. Impressive also was the presence of Castaldo’s team of Italian actors, a tribute to the directing capabilities of Mr. Diamanti, who also played Agamemnon in the show.

Next month in part two, we will discuss the other theatrical show which particularly moved me: Pandeli Horn’s Fyntanaki, directed by another paid-by-the-hour professor, Korina Vafiathou.

This subject will be continued in part two of the October Education Column.