Minotis, Alexis

Minotis, Alexis (1900–90), Greek actor and director, who made his first appearance on the stage in 1925, and in 1930 made his New York début as Orestes in a Greek production of Euripides' Electra. Returning to Greece, he played a wide range of ancient and modern parts for the National Theatre, with which he was associated from 1930 to 1967, succeeding Fotos Politis as director and directing many of the plays as well as acting in them. He was first seen in London in 1939, when he played Hamlet. Among his other Shakespearian roles were Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, King Lear, and Richard III. From 1955 he was responsible for the production of many classical tragedies in the open-air theatre at Epidauros. Modern plays with which he was connected included Fry's The Dark is Light Enough (1957) and Dürrenmatt's The Visit (1961) and The Physicists (1963). He appeared again in London during the 1966 World Theatre Season, playing Oedipus to the Jocasta of his wife Katina Paxinou in Sophocles' Oedipus Rex, Talthybius to her Hecuba in Euripides' Hecuba, and Oedipus again in Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus. From 1967 to 1974 he ran his own company, presenting mainly modern European plays, returning to the National Theatre as General Director from 1974 to 1981. In 1982 he gave a memorable performance as the Cardinal of Spain in Montherlant's play, and he made his last appearance in 1988 in Beckett's Endgame, which he also directed.