Saturday morning in Exarchia with Leda Koutsodasakalou who plays Laura in "The Glass World" by Tennessee Williams directed by the acclaimed Italian director Antonio Latella. She talks to me about how lucky and grateful she feels to be working with him, at the same time she gives me the autobiographical details of the author that are present in the play, as well as the past that seems to follow the characters and draw strength from it.

Would you like to talk to me about the experience of the premiere in Naples?

We premiered in Naples as part of the 17th Campania Theatre Festival which is sponsored by the Italian Ministry of Culture and is an international festival. It was a very beautiful experience. The people who hosted us, and it was very nice and the audience. Because theatre is directly connected to society and its everyday life, gestures, problems, humour, etc. it was very interesting to interact with a foreign audience and their reactions.

What was it like working with Antonio Latela?

He is a great man. I feel terribly lucky to work with Antonio and to have gotten to know him as a person as well. He's smart and generous. He has no attachments to his work and what he does he does purely out of his love of research, his passion for the work and it's wonderful to share that with us especially the younger people. I learn from this man. In terms of collaboration even though Antonio doesn't speak English well we managed to speak the same language and tune in at the same time so that we could understand each other.

Would you like to talk about Laura's relationship with the other people?

Antonio and I have come up with a different reading and approach to the heroine that I personally like. Laura has a mobility disability but she has accepted it. What she wants is for the rest of us to accept it too. She doesn't want to be pitied because it makes her angry. Her relationship with Tom is a bit protective because she sees that he is drowning and he won't last. There is a supportive relationship between the two of them. Jim is the one who notices her for who she is. She is also in love with a picture of Jim maybe not the real Jim. She draws strength from it but realizes during the course of the play that this strength comes from her and not from the photograph and that is very nice.

Is this T. Williams' most autobiographical work?

We stood on that a lot in rehearsal. I don't know if it's the most autobiographical but there are a lot of elements from his life in that piece. Some of it is the relationship he had with his sister, also the name of Tom who plays in the play, and in our play he plays an important role in the play as well it's as if he is in some way on stage as we've set the stage that way.

Would you describe it as a dysfunctional family where everyone lives in their own Glass World?

There is definitely not good communication between the members of this family. Yet for some reason they survive as they are. It's working. But then Jim comes along and it's like a time bomb going off in the house. So in the first part we see this family, although dysfunctional, working, in the second part, with the friction that Jim causes, Tom's departure and the realization of a lot of things, we don't know what's going on.

What is the play's relationship to the past, do the characters seem to be sustained by it?

Amanda is definitely sustained by the past. Perhaps Laura, too, could be said to draw her present from a photograph of the past. The heroes find it difficult to navigate the future. They say things but in practice there is a stagnation.

Could you comment a little on the relationship between people and the trauma they carry?

I think it is up to the person to take strength from their trauma depending of course on how they deal with it. It is important because it can provide us with strength and flourishing. I think in the characters specifically in Laura that's what happens. She takes strength and is ready to handle it. In our Laura we see her being a strong woman rather than a little girl and she's aware despite all the problems that surround her.

Photo credit: Marilena Anastasiadou