When you think of theatre and stage production, you think of big sound, big lights, scores of actors and props, and an evening full of entertainment overwhelming the senses.
It may shock you to learn that over the past few years Greek actor Yiannis Simonedes has been entering otherwise empty stages alone, and 90 minutes later, leaving audiences stunned and standing in ovation.
At the turn of the millennium, Yiannis was approached to perform a dramatic reading of Plato's famous work, The Apology.
Already an established dramatist, academic and stage actor, Yiannis was eager to participate in the project.
As a graduate of Western philosophy, I can tell you it is difficult to overemphasise the importance of Plato's plays. Historically accurate or not, 2,400 years ago they immortalised a quizzical little character whose method of inquiry and thought shaped every major thinker to follow.
When you are asked to render an essay, let alone a full stage performance on a piece of such historical and philosophical significance, you approach it with the daunting awareness that you are dealing with some of the most important, delicate thoughts in the Western tradition.
And if you are brazen enough to tackle such massive material, you still face a big theatrical hurdle: one person presenting a dialogue.
Enter Yiannis! Be it insanity or vanity, but he has done all this! From an ancient Greek dialogue to a contemporary English play, he answered the formidable challenge of engineering the most efficacious means of delivering the goods.
With great care, he did not change the essence of the work (sorry, Socrates is still condemned!), but rather sought ways to convey that essence without the baggage of some culturally obtuse details of the script.
So, of course, this meant a few changes: some slight omissions, a little condensing and using more contemporary vocabulary. For instance, Socrates used humour. Yiannis, too, splashes in additional jokes alluding to present-day politics and life.
So while there are some alterations, his long, careful process nevertheless preserves the essence and the messages of the original Greek play.
Today, whether done in English or Greek, the resulting 90-minute play has been garnering praise wherever it is performed – including a recent performance at the American University of Sharjah.
I
I miss the smell of Greece. I mean, the desolate islands of the Aegean where there is one rock and a bit of soil and the sea. Where one is inebriated by the smell of thyme, the wild herb that grows against all odds (there is no water).
As the Greeks say, it exercises such will to grow and then permeates the landscape with its aroma. Walking these desolate areas with such stark beauty and remembering that people walked there hundreds of years ago… It is a gift to be Greek.
I am grateful to have been able to see my Greece from a distance, with perspective. I can be a perpetual
student rather than take it for granted that I am Greek.
I am also grateful that The Apology is not just me. I have been so fortunate to collaborate with Loukas Skipitaris (my talented director and good friend) and Theoni Aldredge (my wonderfully gifted costume designer and friend).
I remember my first exposure to theatre. Yes, absolutely! One of the best male Greek actors at the time (the greatest,I would say), Demetrius Horn of Athens enacted The Diary of a Madman by Gogol. Interesting actors of all cultures have played this role.
It is a chronicle of a man growing into madness keeping his diary. It is a one-man-show, an adaptation, a piece of the story. I fell in love. I was 18. It marked my life.
I was once told by a student, "I have seen only two people in my life who have a completion of gesture. (The other was a Russian dancer.) When we mime, there is a specific moment that describes the completion. It's like the pin of a needle."
I would have difficulty seeing myself as anything but Greek. Though I think I have also always felt a citizen of the world because that's what being a Greek is about.
It's a state of mind rather than a matter of origin, and it is confirmed all the time by poets like Shelley and others that you don't have to be born Greek, you can choose to be Greek.
I would also be comfortable in other cultures. I have had a world conscience from a very young age. I have always felt like an exile and I have always also felt part of a diaspora. And that has its negatives and positives.
I believe home is where the heart is. My emotional home is Greece. After 42 years, I am still the boy who left Greece. I am not Americanised, although I have been influenced enormously by specific disciplines in the States.
I have founded institutions. Not finding the right institutions, I decided to found them myself. That's how The Greek Theatre in the US came about. It's theatre first and Greek theatre second, which is a distinction in terms of ethnic concerns.
I have always loved to do one thing – stand alone in front of an audience, and enjoy that one-on-one interaction. Which is part vanity, I am sure! But it is also such an intense experience, as you have nobody else to depend on.
Me
Me and my understanding of Socrates.
Socrates is often mistaken as the father of philosophy. In reality, he is the father of ethics, one branch of philosophy. The Apology thus allows the audience to walk the tenuous lines of morality and mortality in a timeless setting.
It is a relevant role for me, and a relevant dialogue for every person in the audience, regardless of age, gender, culture or nationality.
Me and growing up
I was born in Constantinople, but left there when I was three and a half. My parents were divorced. I grew up in Athens. I was fortunate to go to Athens College, and one of the best schools in Europe, the Robert College in Istanbul. I studied there from Grade 4 up to graduation.
We had a choice in the last four years to choose literature, classics, arts as opposed to maths, and so on.
The last year at school was designed as an extra year as you were prepared absolutely for any school in the world. Most of my classmates went to Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard. I went to Yale.
I was planning to study natural sciences, strangely enough, or international diplomacy. My first semester at Yale, I was not doing too well because I was obviously in the wrong field.
I panicked and ran to the dean. And he said, 'Look here, now, let me show the curriculum we have designed for you but we wanted you to arrive at it yourself. They wanted me to arrive at it. They knew my profile!
Me and my dimensions of attachment to Greece
It's sensual, metaphysical, psychological, intellectual…My entire being is connected with Greece, with its people, its quality of light – the stark white light.
Although I was born in Constantinople, I spent a third of my life outside of it, which has made me more concerned about humanity as opposed to only my own nation and its interests.
That said, even though I'm a complete pacifist, I would go and fight for Greece's survival.
Me and the development of The Apology
In 2001, I was approached by Unesco to do a reading. I said yes, I'd love to. I had read it before. So I went back to it, fell in love with it all over again and I realised that I wanted to make it something special. So I went to a colleague of mine, asked him if he and I could work together to make it a dramatic reading.
I usually like to work alone but in this case I felt I wanted another eye. He and I saw the humour, the irony, so we decided to infuse it with the joy of life and intelligence instead of leaving it as a philosophical argument.
So we did a reading, just one and it was so successful that people all over were delighted, they had not seen anything like it. Then they said if you do an English version, we will present it. It was a marvellous challenge.
Many translations later, we decided we would do our own translation. So we spent a year-and-a half rewriting.
This world presence of The Apology is just four to five years old. It started by an invitation by a Greek shipowner who saw it: 'Do you do it in Greek?' I said, 'Well, we started in Greek, this was in English, but it certainly can be done.'
I returned to my country after 40 years, but I felt I was not ready for it. It hadn't been done in Greece, ever. Adaptations, yes but not the full play.
Me and taking The Apology to Greece
I was astounded when I was first invited to perform in Greece. Can you believe that a work as foundational to Greek philosophy and culture has never been performed as a solo piece?
I couldn't either! I have been most delighted to reconnect with my treasured tradition in this special way. I am deeply grateful for the interest of Captain Panayotis Tsakos and his vision in this regard!
Me and my admiration for Socrates
His concern was not really to provide definitions or answers to anything. He wanted to have conversations with the people in his life – whosoever they happened to be: from the grocer in the morning to the fishmonger in the afternoon and Pericles, the leader of Athens, in the evening.
What he was concerned with in his exchanges was the posing of questions, not the provision of answers. Because, as we know, individuals who pose questions are more dangerous than those who provide answers.
Me and being solo on stage
The heterogeneity of an audience and their connection with you and your mind is a wonderful challenge for a solo actor. Solo dancers and singers feel the same way. It is like an invisible string that binds us. You do the smallest thing and the audiences go "Aah!" It has been a gift. I never thought that I would receive so many standing ovations in my life. But you have to stay calm.
Me and Socrates
I talk to Socrates every night and ask him for his advice. After my warm-up of both body and voice, I can feel I am ready to perform. I place his mask in front of me and we have a conversation. Socrates was not perfect, but he had the will to listen to that inner voice. In The Apology, it's not a voice that tells us what to do,but rather what not to do.
Me, The Voice and us
It's a challenge, this inner voice. It speaks to you 3,000 times a day because that voice knows everything about the world. Because we are connected to the world.
If we listened to the voice, we would choose to do the slightest portion of what that voice is telling us. By suggesting what we should be doing, it suggests what we should not be doing.
Me and my requests to Socrates. In his presence I ask for the will to empty myself. To start afresh, so I can be filled by what his presence can bring to me at that particular moment.
Every day, I empty myself and I ask him what I should do. But I don't ask him what he will be bringing to my performance – because that will show in the performance that evening. I do ask for help because I feel vulnerable.
Myself
What does it mean to you to do this every day for a living?
At my age, I don't find it easy travelling, or not being well off and needing to make a living. And yet, with every performance I'm realising a dream by earning my living in this way.
So this play means a combination of things to me. Every performance leads to another performance and then to two more or 200 more. So it perpetuates itself. But for that to happen, I always need to be at my best, and that is not always easy.
Where do you see The Apology 50 years from now?
I haven't thought of that. That's where my vanity comes in. My friend Loukas Skipitaris says that life is not about one piece. We should conceivably bring it to a place that would allow other actors to do it but I am not there yet.
It's either my own vanity or I really do bring an educated view, review or evaluation because of the stage of life I am at. I bring something very unique, very specific. It's not just a matter of a performance but also of a larger ethical concern.
My son and I keep working on this issue of clarity, of listening to yourself. He says you are not allowing yourself to live in full capacity and you must go beyond your assumption that when you are doing nothing, you are feeling guilty.
It reminds me of Irish playwright Samuel Beckett who gave importance to the luxury of doing nothing. We must give ourselves the licence to do this. In this society of over-achievement, it has its place.
