Life
Betty Arvaniti was born in August 1939 and grew up in Exarchia, in central Athens. As a girl she was a competitive swimmer and a junior national champion. In the 1958–59 season she saw a production by Karolos Koun at the underground stage of the Art Theatre (Theatro Technis); she later said that the experience helped turn her towards acting. She trained at three drama schools: first Koun's, then Vachliotis's for a year, and finally Katselis's, from which she graduated. Her son, the writer Alexis Stamatis, was born during her first year at Koun's school.
Greek audiences came to know her through the commercial cinema of the 1960s and early 1970s, including films produced by Finos Film. In 1967 she played Rita in Κάτι κουρασμένα παλικάρια (Some Tired Lads), directed by Dinos Dimopoulos, opposite Lambros Konstantaras. In 1987 she stepped away from film work. Together with Vasilis Poulantzas, a civil engineer, translator and theatre producer, she founded the Praxi company and settled it in a former cigarette warehouse at 16 Kefallinias Street, Kypseli, a space that other directors had already used as a theatre. She has described the director Minos Volanakis as a major influence on her career. In 2000 the Theatre Museum gave her its award for best leading actress.
Works
The Kefallinias Street Theatre opened in 1987 with Fassbinder's Τα πικρά δάκρυα της Πέτρα φον Καντ (The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant), directed by Roula Pateraki. Arvaniti has said she could never have started the theatre alone, and that it was a great risk for her at the time. Its two stages became a home for repertoire theatre: Ibsen, Pirandello, Strindberg, Chekhov, Pinter, Albee, Dürrenmatt and Genet. Stathis Livathinos directed productions on its main stage for six consecutive seasons. According to To Vima, her performance in Thomas Bernhard's Πριν την αποχώρηση (Before Retirement) earned her the Marika Kotopouli award.
Her later work favours demanding older women and difficult inner lives. In 2014 Dimitris Mavrikios directed Tennessee Williams's Ξαφνικά πέρσι το καλοκαίρι (Suddenly, Last Summer) at her theatre. In 2015 she performed Η Τσερλίνε και το σπίτι των κυνηγών (Zerline and the Hunters' House), a chapter of Hermann Broch's novel The Innocents, adapted by Stratis Paschalis and directed by Giannis Kalavrianos. For the theatre's thirtieth anniversary in 2016, she proposed a new collaboration with Pateraki, who wrote and directed Τρωάδες σήμερα (Trojan Women Today) after Euripides. In 2018–19 she played Amanda in Williams's Γυάλινος κόσμος (The Glass Menagerie), her first production with Dimitris Karantzas. In 2019, at the National Theatre, she played Agapi in Μελίσσια (Melissia), a play by her son, directed by Giorgos Paloumpis: their first work together.
Legacy in Greece today
For almost four decades, a small theatre in Kypseli has kept European and American classics in Athenian repertoire, and many younger directors have worked there with her. Her interviews in Greek newspapers are a good C1 resource because she explains her choices plainly. Read her 2016 interview with Myrto Loverdou in To Vima and pick out the verbs that introduce her opinions. Then open the National Theatre's archive photograph of Melissia (2019) showing Agapi and Kyriakos, and describe in Greek what the two characters are doing, as a critic would: Η Αγάπη στρέφει το βλέμμα της αλλού, ενώ ο Κυριάκος… (Agapi looks away, while Kyriakos…). Finally, report one of her views in indirect speech, naming the source.
Did you know?
- Before acting, she was a junior national swimming champion.
- She attended three different drama schools before graduating.
- Her theatre in Kypseli occupies a former cigarette warehouse.
- Her son Alexis Stamatis wrote Melissia, in which she played Agapi at the National Theatre in 2019.
Key works
| Greek title | Title | Year |
|---|---|---|
| Κάτι κουρασμένα παλικάρια | Some Tired Lads — film, as Rita | 1967 |
| Τα πικρά δάκρυα της Πέτρα φον Καντ | The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant — first production of the Kefallinias Street Theatre | 1987 |
| Ξαφνικά πέρσι το καλοκαίρι | Suddenly, Last Summer — Tennessee Williams | 2014 |
| Η Τσερλίνε και το σπίτι των κυνηγών | Zerline and the Hunters' House — after Hermann Broch | 2015 |
| Γυάλινος κόσμος | The Glass Menagerie — as Amanda | 2018 |
| Μελίσσια | Melissia — National Theatre, as Agapi | 2019 |
A line to remember
Αν δεν εκτεθείς, τίποτα δεν γίνεται.
An den ektethís, típota den yínetai.
If you don't expose yourself, nothing happens.
