She studied economics at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, then received a second degree from UCL in London, worked as a researcher at the University of Cambridge, and when she had to decide whether to pursue an academic career, Amalia Kavali dropped everything, returned to Greece and chose the theater. After all, it was her childhood dream.

For eleven years of work in the theater, she distinguished herself in such performances as “Orlando”, “Fate is called Clotilde”, “Three Bodyguards”, “Sweet Bird of Youth”, “A Feast in the Time of Plague”, etc. the role of Urania in “Wild Bees”. Never before has a seamstress been so beloved on screen. This year she plays in Jean Genet’s symbolic play The Slaves directed by Giorgos Skevas and translated by Dimitris Dimitriadis at the Apothecia Theatre, with Alexandra Sakellaropoulou as the Lady, Angelica Papatemeli as Solange. and myself to play Claire.

It was one of the first performances that Amalia Cavali heard when she studied at the theater studio of the Art Theatre, and then, as she says today in “K”, “the aesthetics of the baroque made an impression on me. Later I learned that it was based on a shocking crime that had elements of bacchaage and that shocked France.”

Genet was inspired by the notorious crime committed in 1933 by the Papin sisters, when they robbed their employer and her daughter while working as housemaids. In Slaves, the sisters plan a crime but do not carry it out, and the play ends in suicide. “Violence never ceases to shock us, it is a human manifestation that does not belong to civilization. Closure, which is also the subject of work, coupled with relations of power and subordination, dominance, dependence reinforce such behavior. As far as femicides, child abuse and everything that’s been going on lately, I think they’ve always been there, it’s just easier to hide them. In some places, the law of silence still applies. For example. in Crete many crimes are forgotten or never known. Many women have disappeared and are believed to have abandoned their husbands, although there is no such evidence.”

The text, the actress emphasizes, does not stop at part of the class struggle. It is considered classic because it deals with basic human elements such as interdependence.

“Murders of women, child abuse and everything that goes on for a long time, I think it’s always been there, it’s just been easier to hide.”

Did he like Claire? “In acting, it’s not about judging the characters we want to play, but kind of getting into their soul.” Claire is young, enthusiastic, somewhat squeamish, has strong elements of naivety, and admires Lady and the beautiful aspects of life immensely. “She is also a woman in a trap, and there are elements of creeping eroticism in this confinement too. The two sisters take over the words of the Lady, create imaginary scenarios for escaping from their daily lives, they in turn imitate her.”

Giorgos Skevas carefully led the three actresses to the text. “This is a boot that deals with the center of the text, the core. In addition, Dimitriadis’ translation is surprising in that it shows that the maids use speech. After all, speech is also a means of power. This is a translation-embroidery that the actor likes.” The theatrical Claire, of course, has nothing to do with the television Urania, who put her in the living room of a Greek house for three years. “I’ve never stood in front of a lens, it was my first time on TV, so the experience was like going from zero to a thousand.” Her life has really changed. “At first, my relatives from Crete called me every day. People told me what a good girl I am. The nicest thing that happened to me during quarantine was when I was treated to ice cream, because during this period, Kyriakos, my TV husband, gave me a lot of bitterness. All this enthusiasm, of course, was not for me, but for Urania, who was very fond of the public.

Before he fell in love with the theatre, he fell in love with cinema. “During our vacation in Hersonissos there was a summer cinema, where my brother and I went very often. At that time the films didn’t change often and I watched the same one many times. In addition to them, the TV series “Home Alone” No. 1, 2, 3, “Too Hard to Die” 1, 2, 3, 4, “Terminator” and many militants were mainly brought. I had this addiction until I was 18 because there was a cinema next to our house, in Mastaba in Heraklion.”

The girl describes herself. Weakness of cats. “I love them, especially the homeless who are trying to find a home for them. I have a great time with my kittens, they give me moments of happiness.” Adolescence in Crete was filled with friends, walks in a safer society, communication with nature. At school, he had a love for cinema and the theater club. “At the cinema, I felt like I was in the womb, I felt safe and protected. Because I wanted to be an actor since childhood, I was Vuyuklopido.”

When he later chose this path, in addition to the theatrical studio of the Art Theatre, he taught seminars at the Royal Academy of England (RADA), the Moscow Art Theater, the Grotowski workshop, as well as with Andreas Manolikakis, Eleni Skotis, Katerina Evangelikou, Thomas Richards, Mario Biagini and Robert Carreri. “I wanted to devote myself to acting because I thought I was very practical and I wanted to allow myself to express myself. In finance, no one cares about self-expression. So that element of my personality was muted. Then I was worried about whether I would survive in this profession. But I always remember the words of my teacher Katya Gerow, who said that we should not be one-dimensional people and that we can exist in many professions.

Her father, a chemical engineer, and her mother, a dentist, hardly accepted her choice. Her brother was also an economist. “The field of art was unknown to them, especially the field of acting. Now I can understand their suffering. It’s a common practice for an actor to be unemployed once a year.” Why did you become an actor? “In Franz Kafka’s Letters to Milena, the author writes to Milena Esenskaya, then a young translator: “You are the knife with which I cut out my wounds.” What fascinated me about cinema as a child was that I suddenly found myself in a space where I made contact with people and emotionally tuned in to some of them and the story that they were experiencing. This has happened to me sometimes with literature.”

WOM.A against gender stereotypes in culture

Amalia Kavali is a member of WOM.A, an initiative for women working in culture and the arts, which aims to contribute to the fight against gender stereotypes and gender-based violence. “What worries me is how we communicate what it means to be a woman at work. We come from a time when the authors were mostly male, and there are few works like Slave that have three female protagonists and don’t talk about a man. We also have very few projects in which 50-year-old female heroes are childless, not to mention their childlessness. I have a lot to cover, and I believe that this will affect the theater, society and us. It makes sense that we don’t have many women writers in the long run of history, because they didn’t write, and if they did, they didn’t survive. And these were not only writers, but also artists. Who remembers Thalia Flora-Karavia, one of the most prominent Greek artists, only a few of her works are in the National Gallery?

“Who remembers Thalia Flora-Karavia, one of the most significant Greek artists, few of her works in the National Gallery?”

They started two years ago. After Easter they prepare a feast. What did she face? “Bad behavior exists not only in the artistic field, but everywhere. There is also passive violence, wage inequality, etc. Little by little we start talking about them, and we are good at it, because by talking we can deal with them.”

The short videos that WOM.A sent me after our interview are revealing. Since 1954, 501 performances have been staged at the Antique Theater of Epidaurus, 476 of them by men and 25 by women. Another example is the National Opera. Since its inception, operas have been directed by 590 male conductors and only 10 women, while at the Hellenic Film Academy since 2010, 10 men and 1 woman have been awarded for cinematography, 10 men and 2 women for editing, 9 men and 1 woman. for music, for sound 18 and 2, respectively. No matter how you look at them, they are few.