The Legacy in Amerikis Square and the Unpublished Manuscripts

Amerikis Square, Nicosia, Cyprus. The bustling stretch I traverse today, among people of every nationality, was one that Iakovos Kambanellis (1921–2011) walked each day on his way home. In the pilotis of the apartment building, a gold plaque informs even the most unsuspecting passerby that “here lived, from 1971 to 2011, the leading post-war playwright, lyricist, and academic.”

In the same space today, his only daughter, Katerina, preserves his memory and safeguards, among other things, his invaluable unpublished manuscripts, which she discovered in a metal cabinet on the balcony (!). One of these recent findings, Siloam (1951)—the first version of the one-act play The Street…—will be presented in a world premiere at the Karezi Theatre on October 18, alongside the also unperformed one-act play The Hidden Sun (1951), published by the University of Athens in 2005.

Together with the unpublished People and Days (1949–1950), the two one-act plays form Kambanellis’s theatrical trilogy on his three-year detention in Mauthausen. A home steeped in memory. The emotional charge reaches its peak, however, when one unexpectedly comes upon Kambanellis’s manuscripts above the old bar—where once stood the gin (gin and tonic was his favorite drink) and the Campari (his wife’s drink of choice).

He was a skilled calligrapher and appears to have had an exclusive preference for black ink—there is not a single manuscript written in blue pen. In other pieces of furniture in the space, however, all his manuscripts are carefully stored and catalogued, among them the more recent discovery entitled Suicide, which Katerina is currently transcribing into digital form.

Katerina Kambanelli’s Discoveries

“I found Siloam after my father’s death, when I began to sift carefully through his papers. In that cabinet, inside boxes, he kept all his manuscripts,” she tells me, as we step out onto the balcony. “I have uncovered at least seven or eight unknown works. They deserve to be published, even for the purposes of studying his early writing. These are older texts—they must have been written during the 1950s, up until ’57.”

She takes out the manuscripts one by one and reads their titles: A Wonderful Fellow, The Hidden Sun, People and Days, The Censorship Office, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, Christ and the Kefalonian. “I was the one who discovered these first. The Hidden Sun was found by chance by Professor Giorgos Pefanis in the storage room, in the basement. My father had lost track of that play—he did not know where it was.”

Among her recent discoveries is also a fairy tale from 1947, titled The Forest of Evil: “It is a children’s—adolescent—tale. At the time, my father was twenty-five, having just returned from Mauthausen.”

She describes Suicide as “a comedy with depth. All his plays carry an underlying depth; they are not mere boulevard pieces or light comedies. A Wonderful Fellow is also a comedy, in three acts. Walter Mitty belongs to the theatre of the absurd. The Censorship Office is an outstanding one-act play, a satire.”

Among the discoveries are also unfinished works: The Wedding, Napoleon, Man, This Establishment, La Locandiera, Night Watchmen, and Plutus. There are also four one-act plays: The First-Born, The Trojan, Gods of Olympus, and Christopher Columbus. She shows me the revised version of Odysseus Returned Home, prepared for the 1990 production by the Art Theatre at the Odeon of Herodes Atticus. “He was constantly reworking his texts. I don’t know how many versions of A Comedy exist! He kept revising and revising it until it was staged in 2001–2002. He was a perfectionist to the point of exhaustion.”

The Private Universe and Everyday Life at Home

I take in the furniture among which the most gracious figure of Greek theatre spent so much of his life, and I try to imagine him moving and creating within this space. “My father always sat on this sofa, and my mother in that armchair. And I would wander about. The hallway was the liveliest part of the house. That’s where the three of us would gather.”

In the display case, dozens of dolls in traditional costumes—collected during the couple’s travels abroad—are arranged almost to the point of excess. I have seen a comparable collection only in the home of Chronis Aidonidis. “In this display case, while they were still alive, there were his personal keepsakes, which I later took home, along with old books that have since been transferred to the Iakovos Kambanellis Museum in Naxos, which was inaugurated recently.”

The clock on the wall formed part of the set in the film The Cannon and the Nightingale (1968), in which Iakovos Kambanellis appeared as a watchmaker—he also wrote the screenplay, while his brother, Giorgos, directed. A painting by Stathis Livanis enters into a visual dialogue with a work by Michalis Katzourakis, with whom “he had collaborated at the advertising agency where my father worked as a copywriter during the years of the Junta.”

Persian tiles, copperware, carved wooden sideboards, chests (one by Minos Argyriakis, given to him as a gift by Melina Mercouri, the other commissioned from a carpenter from Zakynthos), and Egyptian tables compose the dense private universe of the playwright. “In general, my father was an avid collector,” Katerina exclaims. There is also a table lamp adorned with children’s drawings—not by Kambanellis’s grandchildren, but her own: “He had me paint it when I was four.”

There is also a corner devoted to icons—curious, given that he had little to do with Christianity. “He was not particularly religious, nor did he maintain any special relationship with it. From a young age, he was even afraid of churches. Nor did he attend them later in life.” The furniture from his study, along with his library, has since been transferred to the museum in Naxos.

On the walls, however, sketches by Kyr and Mitropoulos still hang. “I remember him sitting here, writing. He spent long hours—days and nights—at his desk. He might conceive of something even in his sleep and rise to note it down. He wrote, and we had to keep quiet.”

The Accidental Beginning and the Mauthausen Experience

It is difficult to imagine that his involvement with the theatre began entirely by chance: “It was the period after he had returned from the concentration camp, in ’45. One day he had arranged to meet a girl outside the Mousouri Theatre, where a production by Karolos Koun, starring Lambrini Lambeti, was being staged. The girl never showed up—she stood him up—and since it was December and bitterly cold, he wanted to find somewhere to warm himself.”

Quite by chance, he stepped inside the Mousouri Theatre. He was twenty-three or twenty-four. He watched the performance and was left astonished. The Tobacco Fields, I believe, was the play. He was deeply moved. And what moved him most—since he had never seen theatre before? “How was it possible that I, who had returned from a nightmarish reality, where every day I was condemned to die and surrounded by the dead, could be so shaken by a fiction—that is what theatre is!” That was it. He could not comprehend how such a miracle could occur. And from that very evening, he decided he wanted to devote himself to the theatre.”

He decided to sit the entrance examinations for the National Theatre, but he was not accepted because he did not hold a secondary school diploma. “He did not give up. Clearly, he carried within him a natural gift for writing. And he said, ‘If you won’t accept me as an actor, I will enter the theatre by other means.’ So he began to write.” He possessed talent both for writing and for storytelling. “From the moment he returned, everyone would ask him to recount what he had seen and lived through in Mauthausen. He narrated it so compellingly that his friends urged him to sit down and write it. One thing led to another. That is how he began to write.”

His background bore no relation to the world of letters: “His father was a self-taught pharmacist. His mother had nine children to raise. They were poor people. At a certain point, the pharmacy in Chora, Naxos, ceased to do well, and his father was forced to move the family to Athens, where some of his siblings were already studying.” Iakovos was twelve at the time. “He did not continue school; he had to work, as there was great poverty. He took on all sorts of odd jobs. Yet he read incessantly.”

He had discovered books earlier, in Naxos: “A wealthy boy would come from Athens to the island for holidays and would leave him some books. Once in Athens, he would rent books for a fee from second-hand booksellers, and in this way he managed to read everything—the entire canon of classical literature. He even taught himself French with the aid of a dictionary. At one point, he attended the Sivitanidios School, where he studied drawing. Yet throughout his life he read voraciously—he had absorbed entire libraries.”

At the age of twenty, he was arrested and taken to a concentration camp. “A friend of his in Athens persuaded him to leave Greece and go to the Middle East, in order to escape the Occupation. But that required several thousand pounds, which they did not have. So his friend—resourceful and always scheming—suggested they go instead to Switzerland, which was neutral. The plan was to travel first to Vienna. They had taken cigarettes with them to sell and intended to do whatever odd jobs they could, so as to gather money and eventually make their way to Switzerland.”

They did, in fact, reach Vienna using forged papers. They stayed there for a short time and sold the cigarettes. But when they later boarded a train bound for Switzerland, they were arrested. “At first he was imprisoned in Vienna, and then—his friend had disappeared, and he never learned what became of him—he was transferred to an initial camp and subsequently to Mauthausen as a political prisoner.” He was liberated, after three years, in May 1945.

“They made him president of the Committee of Greek Prisoners, and he remained in the camp until August in order to oversee the repatriation of the Greek Jews, most of whom, of course, wished to go to Israel. He then returned to Greece. On his way back, he seems to have gone first to Italy. His family could scarcely believe he was alive—they had given him up for dead. He did not serve in the army, as he suffered from pleurisy and avitaminosis as a result of the camp.”

Love at First Sight and “The Courtyard of Wonders”

A defining moment in his life was his meeting with the woman with whom he would share most of his years: “I don’t know the details, only that my father was part of a group in which my mother’s younger sister was also involved. At some point, my grandmother said to my mother, ‘Go and fetch your sister, and tell this Iakovos not to lead her astray and keep her out so late.’ There was nothing between them—she was simply returning home late. So my mother went to reprimand him, and that was it. It was love at first sight.”

“My father was very handsome, although the most handsome in the family was his brother, Giorgos. My mother was working at a company at the time. From 1949, when they married, they lived together until 2011, devoted to one another. They shared an extraordinary relationship of equality.” He was first discovered in the theatre by Adamantios Lemos in 1950, with Dance on the Wheat. Until then, he earned his living as a clerk at the Ministry of Aviation. “But he was dismissed by an officer who asked him to translate something from Spanish. My father replied, ‘I don’t know Spanish,’ and the man told him, ‘You’re lying—I’m dismissing you.’ The reason for his dismissal was so absurd. After that, I’m not sure where he worked…”

His major breakthrough came with The Courtyard of Wonders. In the Basement of the Art Theatre, not a single seat was ever empty throughout its 182 performances. “My parents were living in Nea Elvetia, and from the rooftop of their house they overlooked just such a courtyard. My father would often go up there and observe life in the courtyard—it was like a kind of commune, and he was fascinated by the characters who lived together. He was an exceptionally observant man.”

The way the play was completed was anything but expected. “He had written the first act and took it to Karolos Koun. Koun read it and said to him: ‘As you are, you will go straight into the office and finish the play. You will not leave here unless you complete it.’ Koun was adamant—and indeed kept him in his office for several days and nights until he finished it!” He had also knocked on the door of the National Theatre, but without success. “Since 1957, when The Courtyard was staged, he had submitted some of his plays to the National Theatre, and they rejected them all. Yet once again, he did not give up; he was not discouraged.”

“My father was a great fighter, in every aspect of his life. I believe the camp defined him. There, he struggled to stay alive—it was an extreme battle. That experience shaped him. And from a young age he was a profound thinker. He reflected deeply on life and death early on.”

The Period of the Junta and “Our Great Circus”

During the years of the Junta, he became intensely politicized, taking part in anti-dictatorial organizations. “The way we were raised instilled in us a political awareness and sensitivity. After all, he used to say that there is no serious work that is not political. Yet I believe his greatest act of resistance during that period was Our Great Circus. There, he gave everything. He fought tirelessly for it to be staged, as censorship was formidable.”

The performances of Our Great Circus, an idea conceived by Kostas Kazakos and Jenny Karezi, evolved into the most massive political protest gatherings of the time. “They wanted to create a performance of resistance and conceived the idea of a circus: a sequence of scenes, one following the other, through which the whole of Greek history would pass. My father would submit these scenes to the Censorship Office every other day.” At first, the response was invariably “rejected.”

Until he found a way around it. “For each scene, he would write forty pages, calculating that they would reject twenty and allow the other twenty—the sharper ones—to pass.” He attended rehearsals of his plays, but he neither controlled nor intervened. “He would simply offer his opinion, which, in any case, the directors themselves sought.” He formed close artistic bonds with two figures: Karolos Koun and Giorgos Michailidis. “But Koun was his person. Their relationship was deeply affectionate.”

In his daily life, he cherished “the simplest things: for all of us to eat together, to watch television—he watched quite a lot—to be with friends, to sit here on the veranda with my mother and have their coffee.” He returned to his native Naxos every summer, especially during the last twenty-five years. “He loved his island deeply. He was perhaps the only one among his siblings who went back unfailingly. He managed to buy a plot in Chora and build a house. He was very happy and proud of it. The welcome he received each time was overwhelming. My mother used to say, ‘We hardly dare go down for a stroll along the promenade—it takes us two hours to cross it.’”

The Daughter’s Perspective and the Future of His Work

How does his daughter, moved, describe her father today? “He was stubborn, patient to the point of exasperation, noble—not merely polite—and a fighter. Nothing could discourage him; even the negative reviews he received at times did not unsettle him—he never gave up. He was wonderful, and above all he encouraged me to read. He was very protective of me. As for how he allowed me to become involved in the theatre as well, I don’t know—I don’t think he truly wanted that.”

“My greatest anxiety was when I designed sets for one of his plays. I was somewhat afraid of his judgment, even though he was never critical—he never once spoke a harsh word to me. He would tell me, in general, never to be discouraged by anything, always to hold my head high, not to be defeated by difficulties, and to read, to educate myself, to go to the theatre. We were born on the same day—December 2! In general, he trusted me. He never interfered in my friendships or in my going out.”

The year 2016 marks a convergence of significant developments for his body of work. It was not only that two previously unknown theatrical texts were presented together in a nationwide premiere, nor simply that his museum in his native land was—at last—inaugurated. Kedros also published the volume Hear My Voice and Come (its title drawn from one of his own unaltered verses), an anthology encompassing the entirety of his poetic output, featuring lyrics from songs and theatrical works such as A Tale Without a Name, The Neighborhood of Angels, Our Great Circus, and Enemy People.

“We have also included in the edition a series of independent poems—texts that do not belong to any theatrical work, verses drawn from his poetry. I discovered these as well quite recently, in notebooks, diary pages, and loose sheets.” There is further news: a CD has been produced featuring ten previously unpublished and unknown poems of his, set to music by the New York–based composer Spyros Exaras and performed by soprano Lina Orfanou. Karyofyllia Karabeti also takes part. The musicians are American, while in one piece a band from New Orleans performs. At present, his works are being staged across the world: The Dinner is performed at the National Theatre of China, The Road Passes Through Within is staged at the Moscow Art Theatre, Ibsenland in Norway, and Father War at the National Theatre of Turkey.

The Iakovos Kambanellis Museum in Naxos

The museum in Naxos began as an idea in 2012. “I wanted there to be a space where all his belongings, his honors and decorations, his desk, could be brought together. I thought, ‘it would be a shame to keep them locked away in a drawer for my own enjoyment.’” Housed in a historic building in Chora—once used as ducal stables, later as slaughterhouses, then as a library, and now granted by the municipality to accommodate the museum—the collection includes personal relics, documents, his earliest identity cards, his military discharge papers, his driver’s license—“even though he never drove”—as well as the rejection letters from the National Theatre, among other items.

“This year, after four years of effort, it finally succeeded in opening and operating, thanks also to Katerina Polychronopoulou and Natasa Marmataki, who devoted themselves entirely to it.” The long-term aim is for it to evolve into a center for the study of his work. To that end, his entire archive is gradually being transferred there in duplicate form. “We are already enriching the library, and this year acting and creative writing workshops were held, led by Chrysa Spilioti, based on his works Funeral Oration and Four Table Legs. It was excellent work.”

This text was originally published on the Popaganda website on October 8, 2016, by Ioanna Kleftogianni, and is republished here.