Angelique Rockas is an actress, producer and activist. Rockas founded the theatre company Internationalist Theatre in the UK with her patron Athol Fugard. The theatre featured multi-racial casts in classical plays."a historic example of theatre work addressing representation in the most valuable manner"[ BFI archive profile]
Early life
Rockas was born and raised in
Boksburg, South Africa, to Greek parents who had emigrated from Greece with hopes of finding a better life. She had three siblings, followed
Greek Orthodox Christian traditions, and was taught to honour her Greek cultural heritage.
She received her early education at St Dominic's Catholic School for Girls, Boksburg,
and later earned a bachelor's degree in English literature with a major in philosophy at the University of the Witwatersrand in
Johannesburg. After earning a further honours Degree in English literature, Rockas went on to complete an acting course at the Drama School of the University of Cape Town under the direction of Robert Mohr.
A young activist, Rockas appeared on the June 1970 front page of the Star with a group of debutantes raising funds for SAHETI School, a Greek school located in Germiston, South Africa.
Her activities as an anti-apartheid and feminist activist in “the then underdeveloped and extremely conservative” South Africa eventually motivated her move to the UK.
Acting career
In London, Rockas began acting under the direction of
George Eugeniou at
Theatro Technis where she participated in Greek classical productions.
Rockas also played Io in a production of Prometheus Bound.
In 1982, she made her mark on the London stage playing the lead role in Medea by Euripides
Rockas performed Lady Macbeth in Shakespeare's Macbeth at the Tramshed Woolwich.
Rockas performed in several productions presented by Internationalist Theatre in London from 1981 to 1985 :
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Carmen in The Balcony,
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Yvette in Berthold Brecht Mother Courage and Her Children,
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Tatiana in Maksim Gorky Enemies,
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Concentration camp victim Emma in the Argentinian anti-junta political drama The Camp by Griselda Gambaro in 1981 .
['El Campo' in Vogue Mexico Carlos Louis Emmerich, "Angelique Rockas: Una actirz multi-plicada", "Vogue Mexico & Latin America", July 1992. Retrieved on 2019-02-05]
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Miriam in the London premiere of Tennessee Williams's In the Bar of a Tokyo Hotel at the New End Theatre,
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the titular role in Strindberg's Miss Julie in 1984. Rockas challenged casting cliches when as a "short, Latin-looking actress"
Film and television
On film, Rockas has appeared as the Maintenance Woman in
Peter Hyams's
Outland, Henrietta in
The Witches directed by
Nicolas Roeg,
and as Nereida in
Oh Babylon! directed by
Costas Ferris.
In Greece she has played the lead role, Ms Ortiki in Thodoros Maragos's television series Emmones Idees
New Theatre
In November 1980, Rockas set up the performance of
'Tis Pity She's a Whore by John Ford in which she played the lead part of Annabella. She financed the production herself and enlisted the then unknown
Declan Donnellan to direct the play to be performed at London's Half Moon Theatre and Theatre Space. The production was designed by
Nick Ormerod.
Internationalist Theatre
In April 1981, Rockas founded Internationalist Theatre to create a multi-racial and multi-national theatre company for actors living in London of any racial or national background, of any accent, performing drama classics as well as contemporary works not especially written for multi-racial and multi-national casts.
It was first announced on 9 April 1981 in the Theatre News, page (2), by the editor of
The Stage, describing the company's formation "to assert a multi-racial drama policy",
with their performance of the revival of
The Balcony by
Jean Genet.
Internationalist Theatre staged productions by dramatists including Pirandello, Genet, and Tennessee Williams who belong to "the continental, non-realistic, symbolically orientated drama of this century (20th) and..proved most uncongenial to the tunnel visioned repertoire builders" of British theatre of that period.
Personal life
Rockas is an Orthodox Christian, and creates fabric art works some of which are at the
Benaki Museum Athens
Archives
External links
