“When the spectator is a child, then and only then is he precious. And if we awaken him with innocent means, we do him no harm. On the contrary, we warm up the deadened limbs of his genuine emotional existence. The limbs are needed too. That’s why the artist should become a child and play with the audience in the hall – the writer, the actor, the set designer, the director, the musician – a slightly older child, the leader of the gang, who knows how to take the initiative and invigorate the group games.”

A large part of Alexios Solomon’s long life (1918–2012) was dedicated to theater. Director, dramaturgy consultant, translator and adapter, playwright and actor in his youth, set designer, costume designer, lighting and sound designer, teacher of actors, historian, researcher, lexicographer, and thinker of the stage, Solomon was undoubtedly a theater person. And like every theater person who respects himself, he lived devoted to his entirely fleeting art, and after his death, he followed its fate and was forgotten.

In 2013, Ninia Kassavetis and Alexandra Solomou donated their father’s archive to ELIAMINET. Alexios Solomon’s archive reveals the special love that its creator had for drawing, as well as his love for detailed, meticulous recording. Solomon drew lines and recorded, drew lines and sketched whatever interested him, whatever fascinated him, whatever he had done, and whatever he planned to do.

Following the lines and designs of the archive, we present here an initial image of the lines that Alexios Solomon etched into the theater, a preliminary record of the theatrical plans that he devised, whether they came to fruition or not. Our hope is that one day his contribution to theatrical art will find the place in the historiography of the stage that it deserves.

The publication is released on the occasion of the eponymous exhibition at the MIET Bookstore, 13 America Street (December 13, 2018 – February 16, 2019). It is illustrated with material from Alexios Solomon’s archive and includes an extensive biography, a chronological listing of his directorial work, and four critical essays on theater that were published in 1945 in the magazine Anglo-Hellenic Review.