Theatre, Politics, and Money: Karolos Koun’s Art Theatre, the Greek Dictatorship, and the Ford Foundation: From Handout to Handshake

TY - CHAP

T1 - Theatre, Politics, and Money: Karolos Koun’s Art Theatre, the Greek Dictatorship, and the Ford Foundation

T2 - From Handout to Handshake

AU - Van Steen, Gonda

PY - 2024/7/22

Y1 - 2024/7/22

N2 - The mid-twentieth-century development of Greek dramaturgy took its most important step forward with the singular achievements of Karolos Koun (1908–1987) and his Art Theatre (Theatro Technis, founded in 1942). The success story of the Art Theatre is also the story of an emerging Greek avant-garde or, as Patricia Kokori has defined it, of “the Greek version of theatrical modernism.” The Art Theatre pursued artistic integrity over commercial profit and, in the course of several decades, essentially transformed the postwar Greek stage by introducing new aesthetics and also contemporary sensibilities. Koun created a progressive theatre circle in Athens of the 1950s and 1960s, built on the ideals of a more democratically organized company structure, and he also very intently fostered audience participation. Given how postwar theatre and cinema were dominated by the trappings of either conservatism or commercialism, Koun’s building up of a theatre, an audience, and an ethos remains a truly remarkable achievement. What went sometimes unnoticed, however, is that Koun also needed to build up a cash flow. His precarious financial position created dependencies that subsequent reception studies have been keen to forget or minimize. This paper will discuss the first topic on the basis of Greece-based research and writing, but it delves into American archives to shed new light on the latter theme. It makes a case for a transnational archival approach to the figure of Koun, while demonstrating that the pragmatics of the Art Theatre’s daily management deserve our attention as well.

AB - The mid-twentieth-century development of Greek dramaturgy took its most important step forward with the singular achievements of Karolos Koun (1908–1987) and his Art Theatre (Theatro Technis, founded in 1942). The success story of the Art Theatre is also the story of an emerging Greek avant-garde or, as Patricia Kokori has defined it, of “the Greek version of theatrical modernism.” The Art Theatre pursued artistic integrity over commercial profit and, in the course of several decades, essentially transformed the postwar Greek stage by introducing new aesthetics and also contemporary sensibilities. Koun created a progressive theatre circle in Athens of the 1950s and 1960s, built on the ideals of a more democratically organized company structure, and he also very intently fostered audience participation. Given how postwar theatre and cinema were dominated by the trappings of either conservatism or commercialism, Koun’s building up of a theatre, an audience, and an ethos remains a truly remarkable achievement. What went sometimes unnoticed, however, is that Koun also needed to build up a cash flow. His precarious financial position created dependencies that subsequent reception studies have been keen to forget or minimize. This paper will discuss the first topic on the basis of Greece-based research and writing, but it delves into American archives to shed new light on the latter theme. It makes a case for a transnational archival approach to the figure of Koun, while demonstrating that the pragmatics of the Art Theatre’s daily management deserve our attention as well.

KW - reception

KW - classics

KW - theatre

KW - Karolos Koun

KW - Ford Foundation

KW - financial management

U2 - 10.1515/9783110773729-006/html

DO - 10.1515/9783110773729-006/html

M3 - Chapter

SN - 9783110773385

VL - 9

T3 - Trends in Classics – Pathways of Reception

SP - 119

BT - Classical Reception: New Challenges in a Changing World

A2 - Bakogianni, Anastasia

A2 - Unceta Gómez , Luis

PB - De Gruyter

CY - Berlin and Boston

ER -