The whole world of Jacob Kabanelli

Those who pass from Grotta in Naxos town in the evenings, in a building that old it housed slaughterhouses, and then the children’s library, there is a light on until the morning. It is…
the office of James Kabanelli and space, all of it, the museum. In the place where he was born, grew up and loved the reformer of the modern Greek theatre.
It’s here and a month that accepts visitors. The first and only theatrical museum in the region, the time that Athens has not found a solution for the Center for the Study and Research on Greek Theatre. Naxos honors one of the most important personalities of the letters with the help of the Municipality, a Legal Person of Culture, Sports, Environment, Education, Welfare and Solidarity of the Municipality of Naxos and Small Cyclades) and the daughter of the writer, the set designer Katerina Kabanelli.
From Monday until Saturday, and ticket 2 and 1 euro (reduced), guests on the ground floor and the first floor “meet” with the great creator. Through personal objects, documents, portraits, sketches, medals, plaques and archival material, studies, digitized interviews, movie scripts.
Many of the early visitors were startled, as it says in the “K” the director, Katerina Polychronopoulou (responsible for the organisation of workshops and the educational programme), looking at the drawings with a pen that made but and the small objects of clay and wood.
Separate exhibits
On the ground floor, among other things, stand out the sheet music of Manos Hadjidakis, from the “court of Miracles”, personally poems of the author, models of the Sava Χαρατσίδη, Antonis Chalkias, the correspondence of the Kabanelli with the National Theatre, as well as other scenes, and the letters with which some many years ago rejected some projects.
His office is as he left it with a manuscript up, the last pack of cigarettes, his glasses Material donated to the Museum by his daughter, Katerina Kabanelli. The discussions as saying the same in the “K” started in 2011. “Then, with his death, I found myself with a house full of treasures. I thought, “why all this to see just me?”. The material had to come home. In addition, I wanted the museum to become a pole of attraction for cultural events”.
Both the Municipality and the same they want the space to become a center for the study of the project. Kabanelli and theatre in general. “We also want to create a children’s library. Already responded to the “Cedar”. Many original texts will remain in Athens, but all of the copies will be transferred to Naxos. The file is huge. Surprised by the poems that I found out that I knew”. He said: “But I’m not a poet nor a lyricist, I’m a playwright”. Now she is preparing the edition of collection of all the poems and lyrics that he wrote. “I’ve included even the poems that are unfinished, but they are so beautiful when you’re reading”.
Lost texts
The file hidden and lost theatrical texts. “Siloam” (1951) and the “Hidden Sun” (1952) was one of the first plays with fresh memories, representations and experiences of incarceration in a hitler concentration camp Mauthausen. And the two will go up for the first time on stage next October in the “Theater of Jenny Karezi” directed by George Γιανναράκου. “For years, I never knew where was the “Secret Sun,” which was discovered by George. the warehouse of our house. Published in the journal “Infringement”. The project “Siloam” was preceded by another μονόπρακτου with the title “The street” which has been published but wasn’t played that, either. You know the stories that lived in the hospital of the concentration camp my father, the συγκλόνιζαν to the end. Have abandoned them and they lived like rats. Moments does not exceed easily no man. So I want to do whatever I can to not be forgotten the work of my father”.
The director, Katerina Polychronopoulou wants to go up and in Naxos plays. But right now, the educational part of the museum in the Grotta. There are: a laboratory with three axes (what is a museum, what theatre is, who was the I. Καμπανέλλης) with the Wisdom Πολυκρέτη for children from 5 to 10 years. Also a creative laboratory of theatrical writing by Chryssa Spilioti for each member who wants to discover the potential of writing in the play, and another for adolescents and adults on the occasion of the author’s work that has been undertaken by the same.
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