Theatre
The Basil Plant
Ο Βασιλικός
Antonios Matesis · 1859
Synopsis
Zante, 1712. Filippakis, a boy of low condition, loves the daughter of the nobleman Darios Ronkalas, and the father opposes it with his whole household, where rank is held as dearly as property. The son of the family, won over to new ideas, takes the lovers' side against his own. A pot of basil at the window serves as a signal.
Context
Completed in 1830 in a Zakynthos that had passed under British administration, the play was published only in 1859, on the island, by the printer Rossolímos, in an edition the author prepared himself after revisions and notes; another followed in 1881, and there are a dozen in all. It sets its action in 1712, under the Venetians, and the distance in time is an alibi: attacking the occupier of the day directly would have cost the author as much as his text. Five acts in the spoken language, in the dialect of the island and studded with foreign words, when Greek theatre treated ancient subjects in a learned language. Amateurs drawn from among the nobles performed it in Zakynthos from 1832.
Who it is for
A play in spoken Greek, little translated. The allusions to Ionian society under Venetian rule need a few notes to be followed.
Prizes and reception
Histories of Greek theatre regard it as the country's first social drama, and the Britannica as the first prose text of some length written in the language of the people.