Commedia dell’arte established itself in Sixteenth Century Europe as one of the most enduring traditions in world theatre. As a high school drama student, I was enraptured with the form, with the Commedia’s stock characters of masters, servants, soldiers, and young …
The Divine Commedia: Reflections on the Commedia dell’arte Read more »
An unexpected stopover in Syros, the Cycladic capital, afforded us the pleasure of a swim around the city walls of Ermoupolis, overlooked by staggering neo-classical mansions, rather than the toasted marshmallow bodies of German nudists that so commonly dominate Greece’s …
Mykonos. The very word inspires palpitations for the repressed. So it was with palpitating heart I said farewell to Yiannis and boarded the ferry to those golden sands of sin and excess. Bill, the guy who made my coffee back …
If Santorini (to misappropriate Yeats) has the kind of beauty to “make a stranger’s eye distraught,” Naxos is like a lover whose beauty emerges in conversation, deeper and more enduring. Or perhaps I just find it hard to sleep on …
After one long ferry ride, we spent several happy days in Rethymno and Venetian built Hania, Crete, doing nothing much (bar a trip to Knossos, home of the Minotaur), before excitedly trading the Cretan sprawl of Iraklio for the Cyclades. …
It is of little wonder that the Greeks cross themselves so often. With tree-covered mountains conversing with deep valleys and streams that gurgle their way to the sea, one half expects God to step down from the clouds to say …
Today we are in Peloponnesian Nafplio — Venetian built — and formerly the capital of Greece. From here, the plan is to make day trips into Epidauros to visit the healing Temple of Asclepius and the legendary theatre alongside her, …
Modern Corinth is hardly a dazzling metropolis, but its harbour is beautiful, her sparkling waters enclosed by mountains. And its hospitality is legend. In so far as it doesn’t exist, and perhaps never did. Indeed, the hotel we stayed in …
Tramping through the city we find our hostel, nestled in an alley over-run by peddlers and the howling of dogs, crawling in wicker cages outside a satanic pet store. A Byzantine church defies the squalor, as a gypsy boy sings …