Aristophanes, The Birds

The Athens Festival has chosen to celebrate the centenary of Karolos Koun’s birth with a historic production which provoked a violent clash between the “old guard and the vanguard” when it was first performed at the Odeon of Herodes Atticus in 1959.

The Greek Art Theatre’s production of Aristophanes’ Birds (414 BC) melded ‘Greekness’ and modernism and played mercilessly on anachronisms. The casus belli centred on the ancient ‘priest’ conducting the sacrifice wearing a hat of the sort worn by Eastern Orthodox priests and mimicking the characteristic intonation of the Byzantine rite to which the Chorus responded with “Amen”. There were also references to land-grabbing in Cloud Cuckoo Land! Although the protestations of a small section of the audience drowned out the “frenzied” applause from the “habitués in the upper tiers”, a cabinet minister attending the premiere, Konstantinos Tsatsos, placed a ban on further performances.

Three years later and in its final form, Birds would win an award at the Festival of the Nations in Paris [D.K.].