Prometheus in Athens

NAME: ROULA PALAISTI

AGE: 71   

PLACE OF RESIDENCE: KALLITHEA

BIRTHPLACE: XANTHI

ORIGIN: ASIA MINOR

 

ON THE NIGHT OF THE PERFORMANCE SHE WILL TAKE THE BUS FROM THE K.A.P.I. KALLITHEA (SENIORS’ DAY CARE CENTRE) AND DRIVE THROUGH ELEFTHERIOS VENIZELOS ΑVENUE, LAGOUMITZI, FRANTZI, ZACHARITSA AND ERECHTHEIOU STREETS TO COME TO HERODEION. OR ELSE, DIMITRAKOPOULOU AND CHATZICHRISTOU STREETS.

 

Roula's parents came from Asia Minor to Greece during the population exchange in 1923.
"My childhood years were very hard. We had to go through poverty, hunger and the German occupation". She only finished the 7th grade at school and then she started studies to become a seamstress: "I had to learn a profession. In my free time I gathered corn and clover from my parents’ fields".
In 1967 she migrated to Germany: "When I arrived in Munich, the people from Siemens Factory waited for me with a sign, on which it was written ‘DELEGATION : 1 PERSON’. I was the only person on the train! Then they brought me to their ‘guesthouses’, where I lived with 2,500-3,000 other women for the next eight years".
She returned to Greece with her husband and two daughters, where she once again worked as a seamstress.
Today she enjoys being in retirement. She sings in several different choirs and has won many awards for her dancing skills.
 
Roula has never read ancient drama. From the Prometheus Bound text she identifies herself with Okeanides: “I am a person who wants to help another person in need”.