Word: papathanassiou
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...become accustomed inside Athens' Korydallos prison, where they have been serving sentences since 1975. Details of the systematic coddling of the notorious jailbirds are contained in a recollection to be published in Athens this month, titled Prison Diary: Korydallos 1975-79 and based on the experiences of Yannis Papathanassiou, the governor of Korydallos prison until last September...
Explaining that he wanted to "shed light on an aspect of modern Greek history," Papathanassiou reveals how the Justice Ministry itself - evidently under pressure from junta sympathizers - regularly ordered leniency and creature comforts for the special prisoners. He recalls that he had to be constantly on the alert for plots to help them escape. He indicates that some of the prisoners even managed to engage in active politicking from behind bars during the 1977 elections; they communicated through their lawyers to boost the fortunes of the right-wing National Front Party against the ruling New Democracy Party of Premier Constantine...
...spends most of his time alone, reading military history and books about the CIA. Even so, he occasionally gives parties in his cell that are attended by convicted torturers, members of his despised ESA military police, who reside on the third floor. The bumpkin of the bunch, according to Papathanassiou, is former Deputy Premier Stylianos Pattakos, whose meek acceptance of abuse by fellow inmates and blind devotion to " his President" make him the butt of prison-yard jokes. Pattakos even gets pelted with tomatoes and eggs thrown by other prisoners. He takes solace in religious tracts sent...
Electro (by Sophocles) has one of those scenes of naked emotional intensity that have been missing on the stage since Olivier gave his howl of self-recognition as Oedipus. It comes when Electra, played by Aspassia Papathanassiou, sees the urn that supposedly contains the ashes of her brother Orestes. She drops where she stands with a wild animal cry; she clutches at the urn, cradles and rocks it in entwining arms, spasmodically tries to breathe it back to life with words of love, smothers it with the salty, sightless kisses of tears, the strangulated sobs of a soul bereft...
...dissension; the troubles of the House of Atreus belong to the universal family of man. Before the muted grey stylized panels, columns and stairs of the palace facade, the drama of man's willful pride goes on unmuted. But the play's hypnotic center is Aspassia Papathanassiou as she seethes with mother hate and sways before high winds of woe. As primordially pagan as a bolt of lightning hurled from the hand of Zeus, her Electra consumes the stage with quenchless fire. To see it is to see a classic become a conflagration...
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