September 2, 1958
DIONYSIOS ROMAS: A new outdoor theater on Mavrommataion Street has opened with a production of Dionysios Romas’s «Zakynthos Serenata» which was first performed 20 years ago. The play is still as fresh as it was then, telling the romantic tale of a friendly Greek town with its characters and their adventures. The first act was the best, as it was simply told without the somewhat hasty plot development and slightly melodramatic ending of the second act. The plot revolves around a typical 19th century Zakynthian character, the barber-poet Yiannis Tsakasianos and his passionate and tragic love for a young Jewish girl, Emma, who dies at the end of the story. The rest of the many characters in the play simply act as a backdrop for the protagonist and allow the writer to describe the atmosphere of a particular place and time. That is the real strength of the play, which has charm and humor, particularly in the first act. The rhyming dialogue lends itself to the musicality of the local idiom. The acting, however, only amounted to average, particularly for those who remember the first performance of this play at the National Garden Theater.
