When professor, writer and director Yagos Andreadis taught at the National Theatre’s Drama School, he often took his students to see the character actor Mantos Athenaios. “It was a real lesson for young people who wanted to be actors,” he recalls today. “The dishonest person played like a puppet outside the stage with his whole body. And the fact that he made 12 voices, male and female, children’s, it was a school.

He has been a folk hero of the shadow theater for 40 years. Therefore, when stage designer, costume designer, clothing historian and founder of the Peloponnesian Folklore Foundation Ioanna Papantoniou started a discussion about creating an exhibition about Karagiozis in the train car of the Children’s Museum “Station” in Nafplion, the first thing she thought, in order to take care of her, was was he. In 1982, they collaborated at the Europalion festival on the theme of shadow theater, which was presented at an exhibition in Brussels.

George Andreadis curated an exhibition on Karagiozis which opened and became the core of the future shadow theater museum planned by the Municipality of Nafplio and the Vassilis Papantoniou Foundation. He is also the editor of a publication about the barefoot hero, which is already in bookstores, as well as three plays: “O Karagiozis an-Pathfinder” (a transcription of the old satirical drama “The Pathfinders of Sophocles”), presented under his own direction, with performers in Costas Bird and Babis Makris, the traditional comedy “Karagiozis Magician of the East” by Yiannis Dayakos and the play “The Orphan of Chios and Nikitaras” by Tassos Georgios.

So what makes Karagiozis so compelling that it’s coming back with performances, new releases, fresh stories, new creators and through the university community, as well as many teenagers learning alongside seasoned Karagiozi players? “Indeed, willing, informed, trying a lot,” our interlocutor admits to “K”. “I think that our theater is not in the best shape, and in this climate, many people are looking for material in Karagiozis. They remind themselves that shadow theater is theater first and foremost. And Sikelianos, Tsarouhis, Kun, Rallu Manu spoke about this… There is an active interest in what has been given to us, and there is a great need for this material to live again in new conditions. Its language cannot change, new elements cannot enter,” says G. Andreadis, emphasizing that “the difficulty for the new generation is to keep the codes – not to switch to something else that is irrelevant – and at the same time be an original result.

“Our theater is not at its best, and in this climate, many are looking for material in Karagiozis,” says Yagos Andreadis.

He speaks of the puppeteer and his figures, “a troupe in miniature”, as he emphasizes, a man of the shadow theater who, with helpers, moves the figures, imitates voices, creates scenery and figures. For their manufacture, leather and its processing remain the most difficult material. First there was cardboard. “During their trips to America, Karagiozo Theodoropoulos and Damadakis became acquainted with plastic and gelatin. They were the first to introduce plasticity into the figures of Karagiozis. Today there are many good materials and indelible colors.”

The book “I, Karagiozis. 1922-2022 Journey to the Century by Train” (Topos Publishing House), a bilingual catalog sponsored by Vicky Karelia, presents the Greek shadow theater collection of the B. Papantoniou Foundation. There are many interesting collections of Greek shadow theater works, but the collection of Nafplion highlights the works of 12 masters of Karagiozis: Mimi Aspiotis, Thasos Asonitis, Andreas Idalia, Kostas Kareklas (Damadakis), Yiannis Kokkoris, Spyros Kouzaros, Kostas Makris, Panagiotis Michopoulos, Christodoulos Pafiou, Dimitris Pitsikas, Eugene Spataris, Christos Haridimos.

Mr. Andreadis remarks, by the way, that references to the Greek theater of shadows are already found in the writings of European travelers of the early 19th century and somewhat later in the Memoirs of Makrygiannis. “Some, speaking of its origin, go much further, looking for analogies with classical Greek antiquity. Such analogies, which, however, are not sufficient to establish a direct origin in relation to persons, situations and language, can be traced, among other things, to ancient and Middle Attic comedy, especially to the comedy of Aristophanes, as well as to the satirical drama, which is a synthesis of serious and comic theatrical element. However, the Greek Karagiozis, with his characteristics as we know them today, it is very likely that Patras was his first homeland. A city in dialogue with the West, especially with Venice, as suggested by the paternal carnival and analogies with the Greek shadow theater and the Sicilian puppet.

Today, in the world of the screen, the participation of children in the shadow theater “could awaken in them an element of autonomy and collectivism,” the author argues. But also to mobilize various talents such as “writing, visual arts, music, construction, and mostly acting.”