Hellenic Stage - Anna Synodinou

In 1964, Anna Synodinou left the National Theatre of Greece after a serious artistic dispute with Alexis Minotis, which led to a rupture with the administration of the state theatre. In the same year, she founded the “Hellenic Stage – Anna Synodinou” company and commissioned architect Takis Zenetos to design a theatre in the quarry on Lycabettus Hill. The Lycabettus Theatre was inaugurated in the summer of 1965 by the Hellenic Stage, with performances of Sophocles’ “Antigone” (directed by Giorgos Sevastikoglou) and Aristophanes’ “Ecclesiazusae” (directed by Minos Volanakis). In the fall of that year, Synodinou played the role of Sibyl in the play of the same name by Angelos Sikelianos (produced by the National Theatre of Northern Greece, directed by Sokratis Karantinos).

From the summer of 1966 until the fall of 1967, the Hellenic Stage presented Euripides’ “Helen” and Sotiris Patatzis’ “Dereliction of Duty” (both directed by Giorgos Theodosiadis), Aristophanes’ “Lysistrata” (directed by Minos Volanakis), Euripides’ “Iphigenia in Aulis,” “War and Peace” by Leo Tolstoy in an adaptation by Erwin Piscator, Alfred Neumann, and Guntram Prüfer, Luigi Pirandello’s “Mrs. Morli” (both directed by Alexis Solomos), Sophocles’ “Electra” (directed by Thanos Kotsopoulos), and August Strindberg’s “Easter” (directed by Lykourgos Kallergis).

In the summer of 1967, the junta’s censorship prevented the Hellenic Stage’s scheduled production of Aeschylus’ “Prometheus Bound,” and Synodinou was exiled from the Lycabettus Theatre. She returned to the theatre in 1972, and by 1973, she had presented with the Hellenic Stage Sophocles’ “Electra” (a revival of the 1967 production), Lorca’s “Mariana Pineda” (directed by Yiannis Tsionis), Georges Michel’s “Games” (directed by Giorgos Mihailidis), and Brecht’s “Antigone” (directed by Alexis Solomos).

In 1975, she played the role of Electra in Sophocles’ play during the first participation of the National Theatre of Northern Greece in the Epidaurus Festival (directed by Minos Volanakis). In the following years, she collaborated again with the National Theatre, the Contemporary Theatre of Athens, the Patras Municipal Regional Theatre, the Kosmopolis Centre for International and European Exchanges, and presented productions by the Hellenic Stage, including “The Woman of Zakynthos” by Dionysios Solomos, “Penelope Stefanou Delta: From Her Life and Work,” Aeschylus’ “Eumenides” in her own directorial oversight, and “The Secret of Countess Valeraina” directed by Lambros Tsagas.

Source: Melos Project