CELEBRITY INTERVIEW

LEIA CHATZOPOULOU KARAVIA talks to PANOS POLIZOS

On the 16th and the 17th of March this year a very interesting seminar took place in our town at the art gallery "Panselinos ". This was arranged in cooperation with the bookshop "Iliatoras". The main lecturer was the writer, poet, teacher and actor , Mrs Leia Chatzopoulou Karavia. Mrs Leia, as she insisted on our calling her, was born in Athens, and lives in New Smirni. She studied theatre and English, French, Spanish, Russian and many other languages. She has a Doctorate of Letters from the Sorbonne in Paris, and has published about 38 books. 10 of them are poetry and the rest of them are prose and plays. A lot of her books have been translated and published in other countries and some of her plays have been performed both in Greece and abroad. She herself has translated several books from other languages. She now teaches language related subjects and theatre. She is the director of the "Theatrical workshop of New Smirni", and often participates in international meetings. In April 1996 she organised an International Conference on Theatre Studies in Greece, as she is the president of the European Institute of Theatrical Research in Greece. During her visit to Katerini we got the chance to interview her, and found our discussion with her absolutely fascinating.

Panos: What is your opinion of the theatre in Greece today? Do you think that people in our country enjoy theatrical plays of good quality or not, because perhaps our theatrical education is not appropriate? Leia: I think that there are very good quality theatres in Greece, and, if we speak about numbers, then we can point to the fact that there are more theatres in Athens and Thessaloniki in comparison to their population than other world Capitals, which have fewer. I don't mean that all of them are first quality, and perhaps the choice of the public is not always the best, because they will often go to plays which have "cheap humour", such as musicals, which are not always of the best quality. But going to the theatre is already a social process, which means that a lot of people sit together in a place, and this in itself is very precious.

P: As a teacher, a person that comes in touch with children every day at school, do you think that theatrical education in Greek schools is sufficient?

L: No, it's not sufficient and I think that the state must provide more education, because local efforts and local pockets of efforts are not enough for the whole of Greece. There is good theatre in some big schools, which have the best stage managers and so on. I would like to remind you that most of our great theatre people like Koun, Georgousopoulos and many others, came from schools. They were teachers in schools, teaching theatre also. But unless it goes to all the schools, everywhere in the country , it won't be sufficient and probably it is needed more in these remote areas than in the large schools and main centers. P : What do you think should be the way of teaching students theatrology?

L : Not theatrology. Theatre. Theatrology means getting to know about the theatre - that is the history of the theatre- while the most important thing for them is to prepare a play, learn how a performance flows from the beginning to the end, and is presented to the public. I think that the best way is to get everybody interested in it This includes parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts. The general public can be encouraged to contribute too, by perhaps offering a piece of furniture or a vase. In this way the whole community is involved in the performance.

P : Do you think that theatrical education has a positive impact on the development on teenagers' personality?

L : Absolutely! I believe that it helps with vocabulary, it increases the vocabulary of the students, it increases their sense of responsibility because the theatre is a collective piece of work, which means that unless you are responsible you cannot bring it to a good ending. It means that you play the part of another person - you are another person - which means that you learn to understand other people. You start seeing life not only through your own eyes but through the eyes of the parts you have played, and you become a much more mature person. I generally believe that teenagers, who have gone through all these stages in the dream which is a theatrical performance, don't need other "dangerous ways" of expressing themselves, because they have found a constructive way of expressing themselves. I think theatrical education is absolutely wonderful and necessary.

P : Finally, I would like to ask for your opinion about the crisis our education is going through. L; Well, I don't think there is a crisis. I think that the effort of upgrading education should be regarded as wonderful by the students. I know there is a difficult stage of transition between the one and the other, but to me it was a sad phenomenon to see the students wanting less. Perhaps you want less for this year because you are not ready to face more, but to me it would be a crisis if nobody asked for - or offered - more. So, it's very easy for T.E.I to want to be treated as if it were on the same level as a Polytechnic or a university. Is that what we want? What we want is to improve the lower level, and try to pull up those who are able - not everybody - to a higher level. After all, not everybody is intended to become a doctor or a civil engineer, and it is not advisable that they should be. The desirable thing is to fill all the needs of our society, and the needs of society are to have electricians, automobile mechanics, bakers, and so on, because they are all necessary and we all need them.

PANOS POLIZOS, editor of the English Times, published his first newspaper whilst at Primary School. He studied English with John Foss from the age of 10, passing both the Cambridge and Michigan English Proficiency exams when he was 14. He is an accomplished actor and musician, having appeared on TV in both roles, and also a member of the Pan Hellenic Prize winning Pieria Muses dance team. He is now 16 years old and a student at the Fourth Lykeio.