Theater director Leonidas Trivizas has died at the age of 93. Actor and SEH President Spyros Bibilas broke the news of his death in a post on his personal Facebook page.

Leonidas Trivizas was a theater director and teacher of theater schools. He staged works of classical but mostly contemporary foreign drama and, on a smaller scale, contemporary Greek works. Participated in the creation and functioning of alternative, experimental theatrical forms, representing dramaturgy based on artistic and socio-political criteria (Circular Theater, Popular Experimental Stage). In addition, he was involved in the revival of ancient drama, approaching it through a refreshing and modern aesthetic.

He was born in Corfu in 1929. He studied at the Faculty of Law of the University of Athens and at the Drama School of the Art Theater, from which he graduated in 1956. His first attempts at directing were made in 1958 at the short-lived Free Theatre. troupe, and in 1960 with Kostis Nea Skeni Levadea. He then founded his own theater troupe, the Circular Theater (1961–1963). This was followed by his collaborations with the National Theater (1965-1967) and in the independent theater with the troupe of Alekos Alexandrakis and the troupe of Dimitris Horn. During the period of the dictatorship of the colonels (1967-1974) he went to Paris, where, among other things, he attended the courses of Roland Barthes at the Practical School of Higher Studies.

Returning to Greece, he initiated the creation and operation of the People’s Experimental Theater (1975-1984) and the drama school of the same name. The troupe was first housed in the Theater of Athena and then in the Poria Theatre. He staged twenty-eight performances of the widest repertoire. Together with the People’s Experimental Theatre, L. Trivizas was systematically involved in the revival of ancient drama. He presented the comedy Thesmophoriazus by Aristophanes (1978), the tragedies of Euripides Orestes (1979) and Phenisis (1983), as well as the tragedy of Aeschylus The Seven at Thebes (1980). During the same period, he also staged Euripides’ tragedy Ekavi (1981) on behalf of the State Theater of Northern Greece. In these directorial endeavors, he introduced various experiments and followed a directorial tactic of renewal towards a tradition that had been established in Greece in the revival of ancient drama.

Gradually, the People’s Experimental Theater began to face serious financial problems and in 1984, under their weight, ceased its activities. Throughout the previous period, the press of that time was full of reports and complaints about the non-inclusion of the People’s Experimental Theater in state grants. For the next decade, L. Trivizas will refrain from any professional directorial activity. He returned as a director in the summer of 1996, staging the Shakespearean tragedy King Lear (troupe of K. Kazakov). His last recorded directorial work was the play “Falstaff”, a free production of Shakespeare’s comedy “The Merry Wives of Windsor” (K. Kazakov’s troupe, 1998). L. Trivisas, in addition to his directorial career in the theater, also staged performances on the radio. Demonstrative works are mentioned: Wuchek G. Buchner (1964), Chips for All Hours A. Wesker (1964), Great Wall by Max Fries (1964), Donna Rosita by F. Lorca (1967), Block C by H. Venezis and others.

Source: RES-IPE