ABSTRACT

This chapter argues that Karolos Koun felt ill at ease with William Shakespeare; he tried to indigenize the English bard but eventually gave up the attempt for a complex number of reasons. For a long time after 1942, Koun’s Art Theater was associated with contemporary drama. In his 1936 Dream, Koun alluded to the exotic east and the Ottoman influence on popular Greek culture. An allusion to ancient Greek drama was also inserted in the dance of the Naiads or Nymphs, who are called by Iris in the Fourth Act “to celebrate/A contract of true love”. Koun succeeded in presenting a new outlook of the play on a stage that was associated in the audience’s mind with modern drama. From the early nineteenth century onwards, Shakespeare held a prominent position on the stages of Europe, often heading the national repertories, as he did in Greece for many years.