“My dear Stathis. Now, as you begin the long, difficult, but also such a wonderful journey of your life to distant Russia, the land of socialism, my thoughts and my love will follow you … as long as I live. Nine days later, my uncle expired. The message, oral instruction and testament, taken together, were recorded by Manos Katrakis on a small player for his nephew, Stathis Livatinos. It was August 1984. Thirty-seven years later, the director was transcribing his uncle’s quivering but always evocative voice to include as an epilogue in his “autobiographical notes” soon to be published by Pataki.

And Manos Katrakis continues: “…I would like to be able to be present at the result of your efforts, which, I have no doubt, will be effective. (…) But it does not matter. What I have to say is that I envy you. I envy you so much. Because I started without any supplies. Without your prior education. Without your training, without a language, without a person who motivates me, without a school. I don’t know if I would have done anything more if I had all these supplies… But lying is bad. It is one thing to go to war with weapons, and another thing to rely on straw, while others rely on Mannlicher and machine guns.

Stathis Livatinos said goodbye to his uncle at Alexandra’s hospital on August 24, knowing he would never see him again. “On the 26th, we flew with Aeroflot with a bunch of children. I was the only one who was going to study theater at the Moscow Theater Institute. I had a party scholarship because of my uncle.”

The journey into the past during our meeting with Stathis Livathinos began quietly. After all, everything fell into place thanks to the detailed records that he kept for decades and on which he began to work just before and during the pandemic. The years in Russia were a turning point for him, they defined him artistically. I ask him what his first images were, he talks about being bombarded by unfamiliar sounds and smells. “I thought that if I write about Russia, it will be honest to say who I was when I left, and who I was when I left there. But I realized that I want to appeal to people who are just starting their career in the theater and want to follow their dream as I followed it. But for this, my materials must be clean and absolutely honest.

Stathis Livatinos attributes the impetus for writing his autobiography to journalist Nikos Thrasivoulos. The push was his. The story begins with his childhood in Athens and continues until the end of his tenure as artistic director of the National Theatre. How does he describe his life in Russia? “I record this as a catwalk for a clumsy young graduate of the Katseli school. I say this with gratitude to Katselis and all my teachers. There I encountered a different reality, not only in the way theater is taught. It had nothing to do with what you can live in, even with the Western Europe that I imagined. It was a different country, with huge deficits and needs. I stayed in a house where a lot of good and bad happened. I describe small and large. Little moments that don’t exist without big ones. All my way, how I met my teachers. I wanted to be detailed so I could be real. It was the only way I could enjoy this trip. My memory works well with everything good and bad that is connected with it. I remember faces, people, smells, words, sounds. I lived in a Russia that no longer exists, in a country between The Matrix and Doctor Zhivago. I was there during the Gorbachev years, when the world turned upside down. I stayed in Moscow for six years. My daughter was born there. There I married my first wife, a wonderful musician and pianist.”

Stathis Livatinos loves the Russia he has met. “Russia with a religious attitude to art. And artistic attitude to religion. A country full of devotion, enough silence, too much deprivation.”

I met Russia with a religious attitude towards art. And artistic attitude to religion.

“I think this is again a tragic war for which the innocent on both sides are paying. And, unfortunately, we have absolutely no objective information. On the one hand, we only find out what is happening. Inside myself, I keep the Russia that I loved. The people I only met as attackers were not into the idea of ​​the West and Europe. I have never heard a Russian speak out against the West or America. An extreme and dangerous geopolitical game is being played out. In my heart I can condemn Russia, but in public something always offends me, because this is my second country. But secondly. Not the first.

Stathis Livatinos, writing his autobiography, made “a beautiful but also painful journey back.” As he himself emphasizes: “Memory is a personal museum that can be visited and explored, because we must not forget, we must return. This is the last lesson I received from Anatoly Vasiliev. By the age of 80, he is one of the most recognized directors. So he told his new students, “Go back to your teachers, feel gratitude.” I also disclose this “return”.

– Not. No lingering passion. Just the need to honor and appreciate what has really happened until today. Because I loved many people and was loved. Starting with my parents, ending with four children, my wife, a rare personality and artist Yolanda Markopoulou, and ending with my students. To all these people and those who will come later, we all owe our link in the chain. This book for me is a battle with the irreversibility of life.

I have too much respect for newbies to laugh at them.

In March 2021, Statis Livatinos retired from the theater studio of the National Theatre. Crashed and retired (online due to pandemic). The reason that led to the gap, which cost him dearly, was the complaints of students of the theater school about “authoritarian behavior.” “I did not encounter class, but mentality. I lost the battle, but not the war,” he comments. In a letter he sent at the time, he thanked those colleagues who supported him, and concluded by recalling that “it took a lot of effort and many years of perseverance to be able to create this Directing Department that you are in today, and also for the National Theater School to have the infrastructure that it has.” And with an appeal to students: “Leave only the good and change the theater.” I ask him to tell about this fact, which was not included in his autobiography. He replies with restraint, but insistently: “It is a great honor for a man to be a teacher. What does the teacher do? He sets boundaries… He opens windows, he opens horizons. He should not caress the ears of his disciples, telling them how perfect they are, how they can easily succeed. For better or worse, I didn’t study like that. I have too much respect for newbies to laugh at them. You can imagine a classical dance teacher who comes and tells future dancers not to get tired, you don’t need to stretch your leg much, you will do it tomorrow … In the theater, this happens because there is no complete program. I do not mean the schedule, but what, how and why should be taught every year. Our profession is an exposition with content. Never an end in itself.” At this time, Stathis Livatinos is preparing for the premiere (probably on November 24) of the play he is staging at the Cycladic Street Theatre. It brings Alfred Döblin’s Berlin Alexanderplatz to the stage with a mid-war cabaret atmosphere. The author creates “an epic about small but honest people who survived in secret.” “The adaptation of the beautiful translation of Minas Parashis was started by Elsa Andrianu, a permanent collaborator, and we continued it with the participation of 11 actors of the show with whom we have been working together for many years.”

It is an honor for a man to be a teacher. What does the teacher do? It sets boundaries and… opens horizons.

Statis Livatinos is in creative motion: Aida at the Israel National Opera (last summer), then Rigolet in 2023-2024. At the end of February, KTHBE will present the work of Isaac Bassevis Singer “Enemies, a love story”.

“Full …” – I notice. “I will be complete only after death!” he answers with a smile. “At the moment I am working at a job I love. I can stand on my own two feet and love and be loved. What else do you need in life?