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Angelique Rockas Quotes

Angelique Rockas is an actress, producer and activist, most notable for introducing London to its first multi-racial and multi-national theatre productions in the 1980s. Rockas founded Internationalist Theatre in the UK with patron Athol Fugard. The theater featured multi-racial casts in classical plays, breaking racial barriers that were once accepted norms for theatrical performances.

Angelique Rockas photo
Angelique Rockas: 23 quotes0 likes

Famous Angelique Rockas Quotes

“I arrived at as an undergraduate with two driving passions: a consuming interest for a politics of justice grounded in a Christian theology and acting, as a ‘revelation of the treasures of the human soul’ not as a form of exhibitionism. My search for justice grew out of the pain I experienced when I saw the ridicule my malformed brother elicited. I became aware of the evil that is prejudice, a form of injustice. My urge to redress this prejudice took a more social dimension during my years as a boarder at St Dominic’s Convent, where the great Barbara Hogan matriculated a year later than me though I only got acquainted with her at Wits.”

Angelique Rockas

The South African Interview (August 8, 2011)

“I myself have experienced the volcanic existential depths of the Greek language. It was during a performance of Medea by Tzeni Karezi at the Herod Atticus theatre in Athens, when she was pleading to the callous Jason to take pity on her and she used the word ' splachniasou'. 'Pity' is too weak a word to describe the emotional and psychological depths ' splachniasou' expresses. 'Splachna 'is the part of the body where a woman carries her unborn children, the very root of ontological existence. How deep can you get!”

Angelique Rockas

On the Greek language
Interview on Helenism .net (September 2011)

“Apart from the greatness of Bizos for his role in the dismantling of apartheid, defending Mandela etc, he also manifested a genius in his role as a leading member of the conservative South African Greek community, by drawing historical parallels between the 400 years of slavery that Greece had suffered under the Ottoman Turks and the 300 years or so of repression and cruelty suffered by the Southern African black tribes and mixed race people under the British and then under the Nationalist Afrikaner rule. By using this strategy Bizos was able to balance his fight for justice in South Africa, and synchronously lead the very conservative Greek community in a more progressive direction.”

Angelique Rockas

On George Bizos
Interview on Helenism .net (September 2011)

“Morally, good theatre and film for that matter disturbs and unnerves us, tries to rid us of our cliched reactions to the world around us by expanding our sympathies, stretching our imaginations, and enriches us”

Angelique Rockas

English translation of the Spanish language text.
Vogue, Mexico Interview: Una Actirz Multiplicada (July 1992)

“At the end of my course I realized there was no place for me in South Africa because I found it difficult to function in a society that considered 75% of population inferior, that my community frowned on me as an actress, and my beliefs for a non-racial society now incorporated a fight for the equality for women an anathema to my conservative Greek community. I did not want to spend my life apologizing for who I was.”

Angelique Rockas

On leaving South Africa
The South African Interview (August 8, 2011)

“Voulagris asked me to find film funding for what was to be the last but unfinished film project of Elia Kazan, a personal friend of Voulgaris. The subject of the film was the immigration of the Kazan family from the beleaguered Greek minority communities under Turkish rule in Asia Minor to the safe haven of the USA where the Kazan family settled. I arranged a meeting between Elia Kazan and the London based film financier Frixos Constantini of Poseidon Films at the Grand Bretagne Hotel in Athens. What followed from this meeting is that Mr Constantini put Elia Kazan in touch with Martin Scorsese a personal friend of Mr Constantini and who also runs the production company Cappa films. And so it was that these two giants of US cinema met for the first time.”

Angelique Rockas

Interview on Helenism .net (September 2011)

Angelique Rockas Quotes about time

“…this is not the only time that I have stuck out my neck for a Greek film director. With Nikos Nikolaides I introduced him to Mr Constantini as well, and undertook to send his XXX-rated movie "Singapore Sling" to two of the top film agents in the UK, Jenny Cassarotto and PDF who have now changed their name on account of a merger. Ms Cassarotto was indulgent, but the other agent was so shocked that he treated me as if I was peddling porn. The things I've done for Greece!”

Angelique Rockas

On helping Greek film directors find funding
Interview on Helenism .net (September 2011)

“A key moment of my spiritual epiphany was the tale told by the property manager of our apartment block, Mrs Marina. Every year on All Saints Day if I remember correctly, she commemorated the death of her son who died from an overdose. She baked some holy bread, antidoro, and then took it to her parish Church as an offering for evening vespers. When I asked Mrs Marina why she was doing this, she replied simply, "So that Christ speaks to my son and takes pity", as it is on this particular day it is believed that the Christ descends once again into the bowels of hell, not to defeat death this time as in Holy Saturday, but to keep company with the so called damned. For mothers like Mrs Marina fearful that their dead children might inhabit this nether world because of their sins, despair of redemption etc, Christ's visit provides some hope- that He might take pity on them and relieve them of their eternal punishment. Christ as the God that Unshackles the power of Hell and Death, the Resurrected Christ that even reaches out to the damned, and not the Christ of Deo Satisfactio of the heretical western Churches is one of the great glories of Greek Orthodoxy and of Orthodoxy as a whole.”

Angelique Rockas

Interview on Helenism .net (September 2011)

“Our first play in 1981 was Jean Genet’s The Balcony, a prophetic choice, set in Paris in turmoil, just as London was being torched during the Brixton riots, an explosion of racial tensions that had been simmering for some time. I insisted on casting a Caribbean actress to play the lead, Irma the Madam of the Brothel.”

Angelique Rockas

The South African Interview (August 8, 2011)

Angelique Rockas Quotes

“… without New Testament Greek there would be no Christian Theology, or possibly no Christianity. The Athanasian Creed, the dogma of Christ the Homiousios, of the same essence as the Father, the dogma of Christ, fully God and Fully Human, The dogma of the Holy Trinity, 'that Christ is the incarnation of the indivisible source of the Divine Godhead through the power of the Holy Spirit " could only have been formulated by the Church Fathers within the linguistic structures and concepts provided by early century Greek language and thought., e. g concepts such as the God/man, a concept that which does not exist in the Hebrew and is totally foreign to Hebrew culture. Hence Shelley's assertion that the Greeks /the Hellenes "gave us our religion."”

Angelique Rockas

On Orthodoxia
Interview on Helenism .net (September 2011)

“Part of my Greek heritage: The call of resistance to the Nazis, when all mainland Europe had succumbed, it was only Greece my Antigone, who resisted and was starved for it.”

Angelique Rockas

Interview on Helenism .net (September 2011)

“The ground breaking production of the company, and the point at which the cross-cultural casting began to bite, was Brecht’s anti-war play Mother Courage. Just one comment in a review by critic Malcolm Hay jolted us into the realisation that we were making history: Why is an Indian actor playing the Pastor?”

Angelique Rockas

The South African Interview (August 8, 2011)

“.. the gift of Orthodoxia : The call by the Christ not to be just good moral and ethical beings, which is where the western Churches stop- but to go beyond that, to be 'theanthropic", to reflect the generosity and magnificence and beauty of the Christ.”

Angelique Rockas

Interview on Helenism .net (September 2011)

“The reason the Internationalist Theatre productions demanded attention was that the directors who had already worked at top theatres like the Royal Court and the Royal Shakespeare Company had agreed to take the risk of directing classical plays with multi-racial casts, that the performance was of a very good standard, and furthermore that many prominent members of the arts establishment, Lindsay Anderson, Cameron MacKintosh, John Barton, Richard Eyre, the great casting director Mary Selway, Stephen Berkoff, Nicolas Roeg, came to see performances by Internationalsit Theatre.”

Angelique Rockas

On Internatioanlist Theatre
Interview on Helenism .net (September 2011)

“As a little girl my mother used to take me with her to her fittings with her very expensive seamstress. I was dazzled by the beauty of the fabrics and the whole procedure. I still remember the feel of expensive taffeta.”

Angelique Rockas

On the beauty of fabrics
Interview on Helenism .net (September 2011)

“Many of the Greek journalists and TV presenters also seem to share this "progressive intellectualism" which leads Greeks to having to apologize for being Orthodox- What a load of rubbish! Prof Yiannaras with whom I have corresponded then continues with the frightening story about 'the predicted and inevitable and desirable Latinization of our Greek alphabet" quoted by an anonymous source in a periodical Samizdat. Let's get this straight both Greece as well as the Balkan countries that have Kyrilic alphabets should fiercely resist Latinization.”

Angelique Rockas

Objection to Latinization
Interview on Helenism .net (September 2011)

“The breaking of casting cliches also broke boundaries. A short, Latin-looking actress like me playing classical roles such as Miss Julie, and playing them well, made casting directors uncomfortable. It was unheard of that a short, dark-haired actress of Greek temperament could play the aristocratic Miss Julie. Not beautiful or tall enough etc. It proved one of the best productions of Miss Julie ever seen in London.”

Angelique Rockas

On the formation of Internationalist Theatre.
The South African Interview (August 8, 2011)

“My grandmother was a fearless Greek warrioress, and very protective of her land. She literally ordered some Nazi soldiers to get off one of her fields pointing a gun at them.”

Angelique Rockas

On the Greek heritage to resist
Interview on Helenism .net (September 2011)

“English translation of the Spanish language text.”

Angelique Rockas

Vogue, Mexico Interview: Una Actirz Multiplicada (July 1992)

“The thing I like about having a company is the academic side. Then you forget about the academic side once you`ve done the administration and you start creating.”

Angelique Rockas

On the academic side of producing
TA NEA (London) Interview (June 1983)

“The first performance the company staged was Ford`s '`Tis Pity Shes a Whore.'”

Angelique Rockas

It was well received. I like to choose the play, the directors, the designers.. it`s a total creative act.
On the production of Ford`s Tis Pity She`s A Whore`
TA NEA (London) Interview (June 1983)

“I myself have experienced the volcanic existential depths of the Greek language. It was during a performance of Medea by Tzeni Karezi at the Herod Atticus theatre in Athens ,when she was pleading to the callous Jason to take pity on her and she used the word ' splachniasou.'”

Angelique Rockas

'Pity' is too weak a word to describe the emotional and psychological depths ' splachniasou' expresses. 'Splachna 'is the part of the body where a woman carries her unborn children, the very root of ontological existence. How deep can you get!

On the Greek language
Interview on Helenism .net (September 2011)

“I know I´m headstrong.”

Angelique Rockas

The Star (South Africa) July 1973

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