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We asked him if he was expecting this award and what it means to him. "I was not concerned about the award," he replied. "When I'm performing in a show, I don't think about whether I'm going to get an award. Of course I am happy for this recognition from the official state, but I feel that more important is the recognition I receive from the people. Have you imagined an actor who is not loved by the people? Not accepted by the audience? No matter how many awards you get, they won't count!"
Playing the role of an alcoholic father in Sam Shepard's "Buried Child" (directed by Athena Kasiou, produced by Open Arts), Stavrinidis captivated the audience with his evocative performance and made the task of the THOC jury easier. As stated in its rationale: "With his subtle acting, an exercise in moderation and naturalness, and a special energy, dense, solid and eloquent, with which he fed back to his on-stage colleagues, he managed to encapsulate the wrecked life of a dysfunctional alcoholic father. It was a tour de force performance that offered a clear, compelling and absolute presence in the space."
We asked him to talk to us about the play, his role, but also about the issue of alcoholism and its effect on the unfolding of the plot. He said that it is a play that deals with the human condition and penetrates the innermost chambers of human nature. "Unfolding before you is the average American family with its American dream which is ultimately crushed because its malignant, corrupting and nightmarish aspect prevails. At the same time, the catastrophically destructive role that an alcoholic patriarchal being can play, both in his family and in society, emerges. The play also highlights the traumatic side of big family secrets. Every family has at least one uncomfortable secret. All these and more make Sam Shepard's play a masterpiece."
The rationale for awarding Spyros Stavrinidis with the 2021 THOC Grand Prize is not limited to this particular performance, but makes special mention of the great actor's long and fruitful career in the theatre, which was one of the criteria for the award. It stresses in particular "his active and active career in the theatre of Cyprus for more than fifty years, which he has served to this day with zeal, daring and dedication, constantly reinventing himself and his place on the stage".
Summing up his career in the interview with CNA, Stavrinidis, with great sincerity and generosity, underlines that his career is largely due to the great actors with whom he has had the good fortune to work with. "It was a journey with all the adventures one can encounter on a journey. Look, I seemed to have been too lucky in my artistic career, too lucky. I'm making a parenthesis here. School doesn't make you an actor, school gives you a bushel, a way of working. But no matter how much talent you have, too much depends on the actors in each play," he says. Therefore, he notes, "I seemed to be very lucky because I graduated from the School of Art Theatre at the same time as a bunch of great artists, which helped me grow. We came to Cyprus and the RIK Theatre was created, which was the prelude to THOC. Evis Gavriilides, Nikos Charalambous, Despina Bebedeli, Jenny Gaitanopoulou, Stelios Kafkaridis, Antonis Katsaris, Lenia Sorokou and Eftihios Poullaidis who came shortly after, all of them made me a lucky man to be with them. We had the same aesthetic and theatrical perception. With them I evolved. If at the beginning of my career I had played alongside untalented people, I would not have had the same path."
The feedback with artists who are a very important part of the history of Cypriot theatre itself, also led THOC to an upward and prosperous path. "THOC - notes Spyros Stavrinidis - presented its great achievements when the core of the artists I mentioned existed. We knew each other on stage, how can I put it, it's like a football team in which the best players have been playing together for 10 years, they know each other inside and out, where to pass, how to pass, when to pass, when to pass. It was a team of champions."
He has been involved in the theatre from a very young age, thanks mainly to his brother, Takis Stavrinidis. "From a young age I had decided that my future was in the theatre. My brother Takis was a classmate of Stelios Kafkaridis, Jenny Gaitanopoulou, Nikos Charalambous and many others. I was younger, but they imbued me with a love for the theatre."
[/P]There were, as is normal, difficult moments. He remembers that in the early years, playing in Anton Chekhov's The Seagull, he felt helpless, he felt he could not cope with the demands of the role. "For some reason I felt like that, that I was doing badly and I was walking the streets and I thought that everyone who saw me was saying what a bad actor Stavrinidis was."
The course at the THOC was like a stormy sea; were there any windless ports? What is the relationship between actor and director? He is categorical. "Easy things in the theatre are relative. Theatre is a difficult art. In a family there are the easy moments and the intense moments. Same with theatre, we have had our tensions, when you rehearse seven hours a day you put your soul down. Of course there were petty arguments, even fights, like in a family. But when it came time to go on stage, it all faded away. The stage was a stage and we loved our work!"
It is perhaps worthy of wonder, but also of special study, how it is possible that such powerful personalities as theatre artists can become a team to put on a show.
He smiles. "On stage the ego dissolves! Your concern is to be real, to play what the writer wanted to say, your concern should be to put on a very good show!"
Are there roles he would have liked to be given but weren't? "I don't think of it that way. I have played many roles and I feel full!"
Spyros Stavrinidis believes that Cypriot theatre stands high, but it can be even higher. In this context, he believes that the state has recently taken an important step in this direction. "I believe - he tells us - that the establishment of a Deputy Ministry of Culture is an opportunity. The arts, theatre, cinema, literature are the consciousness of the people which we must cultivate, preserve and promote. With this move, culture is becoming a state entity, showing that it exists in the eyes of the state."
For two years now, humanity has been hit by the pandemic. People's physical and mental health, human relationships, social and professional activity have long seemed like a precarious stake. In this particular case, what about the theatre?How much has it been affected and how difficult things have become for its actors?Stavrinidis, acknowledging the problems, reassures: "The actors, the directors, all the contributors to the theatre are there and are struggling! We are having a hard time, but we are not bowing down!"
In their personal and professional careers, people are forced to make compromises. Were our award-winning actor's compromises tolerable, necessary and enforced, or were some not to be made?
"My compromises were worth it!" he replies. "Is it possible to live without compromises? Whatever compromises I made had to be made."
Spyros Stavrinidis is not only an actor, he is a thoughtful man who follows developments in the world. On the occasion of the rapid deterioration of relations between Russia and the West due to the Ukrainian issue, we ask him to tell us whether he senses in the atmosphere the smell of a catastrophic war. "I fear that something bad is about to happen because there is no willingness to compromise. It is also noteworthy that most of the media place the start of this evil after the end of the Winter Olympics in Beijing. Isn't that interesting?The Olympics, Ancient Greece, the forced truce..."
Somewhere here our discussion ends. Stavrinidis, Spyros in the world, thanks me. "See you at the next performance," he tells me. Yes, the one where the actor "whose ego dissolves" to embody, with sacred devotion, the author's deepest will, taking his art one step further.
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