Dinner Theatre: No Ham in the Soup
PENNY Loizou directed Peter Shaffer’s Black Comedy for ACT at the Nicosia Hilton.
Googie Withers (Dead of Night, Pink String and Sealing Wax) once appeared in a Dinner Theatre (with husband John Macallum) at the Nicosia Hilton. Yes she did.
On interviewing her, she explained the difficulty of acting in a dining room and how another star went through agony before her entrance at a Dinner Theatre elsewhere.
This was Claudette Colbert (It Happened One Night, Cleopatra) who was waiting to follow her leading-with-a-smile man but was forced to stay amongst the cutlery for quite a while as the audience kept on cheering, screaming and laughing for a long, long time but not actually for her. 
She eventually went into the dining room (the stage) to pick her co-star off the floor. He was quite big, too. Rex Harrison had upstaged her.
Although the cast last Friday were, if they wished, passed titbits from the buffet before their performance not a single actor would miss a cue. After tucking in for one and half hours the ten to a table audience were told that the play was ready to start but desert  - chocolate carre, vanilla panacota & lime mousse and coffee – would be served after the "Curtain Call".
This is the hilarious play in which lights on (for the audience) means there is a power cut, while lights off means the  space is flooded with light.
Even the last line ends with the cast completely in the dark once the fuses have been mended. Brilliant.
However at the final curtain call everyone could be seen and Penny was brought in from the dark of the dining table area to receive her well deserved bouquet.
Everyone of the cast was excellent, movement  outstanding, accents in class and other languages dead on.
Faultless performances with every section of the acting area used to advantage. Top standard direction of course.
Well here are the names of this great ensemble: Ricky Iacovou, Melanie Lovatt, Hilary Ives, Carlo Ioannou, James Mackay, Andrew Varley, Tessa Kolessides and John O’Donoghue.

Psathari’s Auction House
The creation of Psathari’s Auction house is substantially the extension of the work of Kypriaki Gonia Gallery which for fourteen years has served and serves with consistency the Art and Culture.
The House aspires to serve the Art with the same zeal, contributing in the wider projection and promotion, in the formation of a new generation of votary of the Arts, in the creation of new collections, in the enrichment and renewal of old and still it provides the possibility for the votary of the Arts to invest in the Arts, creating the stock exchange of Arts.
The House will deal with the auctioning of the work of Cypriot and Greek artists such as Kashelos, Votsis, Sergiou, Economou,  Stass, Mytaras, Ioannides, Fassianos, Koukos, Charalambous, Tourou, Corbidge, Patsalos, Hadjikyriakos, Ghika, Chrysanthos and Sergiou.  What a  great Cypriot line-up
The auction will take place at the Hilton Hotel, on Nicosia, Wednesday, May 9,  at 8pm.
Enquiries and  catalogues 99564131 or 24621109.
 And Cypris Auctions Greek & Cypriot Painting of the 19th and 20th hold a sale at the Hilton Hotel, Nicosia on May 23. The works will be exhibited in the Akamas Room from the 19th to the 23rd.

Nicos  Papaloukas at Apocalypse
THIS exhibition  continues until  May 12 but luckily I have already seen it as it was hung  before the opening.
A splendid show.
I believe the artist hails from Kyrenia originally but has been studying at Thessaloniki, where he gained excellent marks, comments and awards.
Papaloucas captures space, the light and beauty of the environment. 
Years ago, I remember a critic calling a superb painting ‘haptic’ and this word (not in my dictionary however)  appears to suit the work of  Papaloukas.
How fine to see yet another young artist using the simple, calm, uncluttered visuals of this country. And have readers noticed that figuration is back? Perhaps it never left.

Diadromes by Demetriades
Spyros Chryssis Demetriades is exhibiting at Pegasus Art Foundation until May 25. 
This brilliant artist of Cyprus is based in Limassol.
Demetriades makes  highly critical comments on this society, painted with great wit and visual accomplishment.
Full report after I have seen the exhibition.
It opened last night and is at Art Studio, which appears to be near the Rialto.

Art Aware time
ART Aware is taking place on Sunday at 7pm at the Goethe Zentrum, Nicosia.
This month’s participants are Vedia Okutan and Hourig Torossian.
Vedia was born in Cyprus in 1980. She graduated from the Fine Arts Ceramic Department of Hacettepe University, Ankara. She started working in the same department as a research assistant in 2001.
In 2004, she gained her MA degree.
Verdia has participated in exhibitions in and out of Cyprus and has received prizes for art.
In her work she studies the human body and variations of human bonds and turns these shapes into art forms with the help of the clay’s natural plasticity.
She had her first solo exhibition in 2005 under the concept of ‘Unidentified Bodies’.
Hourig says of her art: "My work has an autobiographical  character and tends to focus on objects or images that have a direct relationship with my own history."
"By using various means of reproduction (transformation), from painting to papier-mache, I am attempting to encounter and preserve traces of past events, and, in the process, explore the boundaries between experience and memory."

George Sykopetrites
GEORGE Sykopetrites is presenting Snakes and Ladders at the Panicos Mavrelis Cultural Centre, 71 Irini Street, Limassol.
Sykopetrites is the most original of our contemporary artists.
His paintings are richly-imaginative and painted with total command of technique and style.  Do go and see them. 
His work expands out from this island with a global sensitivity but also goes deep into its soul.
There will also be a book presentation; in Greek and English.
 Opening hours Friday 10am–1pm and 4pm-7pm,
 Saturday 10am–2pm.
Full report next week.

And continuing…
 MIKE Marshall at Pharos centre of Contemporary Art, Nicosia exhibits until May 31.  
Marc-Alain Stamm has photographs  at Leo Gallery 18 Amphitritis Street until May 19. Call 99511546 for personal appointment. More on this elsewhere. 
Nicos Tornaritis has opened an exhibition of paintings by Christos Charalambous and Gabriella and Vasso Papett  at Kyklos Art Galley, Paphos.  It will continue until May 20.
Lefteris Olympios  continues at Morphi Gallery, Limassol until  May 5.
The Leventis Museum of Nicosia’s exhibition on  Samuel Beckett continues until May 6.

An Invitation to Travel
This exhibition, at Leo Gallery, 18 Amphitritis Street, Acropolis, Nicosia, is comprised of photographs by Marc-Alain Stamm.
The subjects are of far-away places (Bali, Java Ecuador and Cuba) and have simple themes such as washing on a line.
The artist obviously has a  brilliant "eye" and the simplest of objects  is seen with a new enrichment.
They are printed on aluminium and the colour, detail and appearance of texture are quite staggering.
Certainly one-up on your more than average oil seen in painting shows.
The gallery is run by that very talented young artist  Leo, who must not ignore his own work, however.
Get him to talk on Stamm’s works, though.
An exceptionally lively exhibition.
Opening hours Wednesday-Saturday 6pm-9pm. For a personal appointment, call 99511546
e-mail :
 leogallery@uscx.net