Today Google is dedicating its Doodle to the great Greek theater director Karolos Koun who reformed the Greek theater
biography:’
(1908–87), Greek director, who while teaching English in Athens during the 1930s mounted a remarkable series of productions of the classics performed by young people. In 1942, during the German occupation, he founded the Art Theatre (Theatro Technis) in Athens, where he produced the plays of ancient and modern Greece as well as such works as Ibsen’s The Wild Duck (1942), García Lorca’s Blood Wedding (1948), and The Glass Menagerie (1947) and A Streetcar Named Desire (1949). The theatre was closed because of his Communist sympathies between 1949 and 1954. His work for other companies included Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman (1950) and for the Greek National Theatre Pirandello’s Henry IV and Chekhov’s Three Sisters. In 1962 he took his company to the Théâtre Des Nations in Paris, where their performance of Aristophanes’ Birds was much admired. It was seen during the World Theatre Season of 1964, and again in 1965 and 1967 together with Aeschylus’ Persians and Aristophanes’ Frogs respectively; in 1969 the company presented Aristophanes’ Lysistrata there. In 1967 Koun also directed Romeo and Juliet for the RSC. Koun’s school of drama, attached to the Art Theatre, supplied the Greek stage with a number of leading actors. The company moved to a new building in 1981.
Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/karolos-koun#ixzz2el2kWeu6
Here is a video of “Όρνιθες – Les Oiseaux – The Birds” by Aristophanes directed by Karolos Koun, with the music of Manos Hatzidakis. It is a performance of 1975 in Epidaurus theater.
We choose this part of the play, because you can get an idea of parodos*, one of the parts of
Ancient Greek Theater (Comedy & Tragedy).
* Parodos, an ode sung by the chorus as it made its entrance
If you would like to watch the whole play, please click on: youtube,com