George Cram Cook, a multi-faceted personality and from its inception in 1915 the brain behind the famous Provincetown Players (a theatre in which Eugene O’Neill, among others, started his career), came to Greece in 1922 and settled in Delphi with his wife and renowned author Susan Glaspell. There Cook met Angelos and Eva Sikelianos; before the beginning of their Delphi Festivals he ventured to stage a type of Passion play at the ancient theatre at Delphi, but he passed away in 1924. This article examines Cook’s acquaintance with the Sikelianos couple and other intellectuals as well. It also examines the kind of theatre that he had attempted to create in Greece and the influence he had possibly exerted on Eva Palmer-Sikelianos. Concerning the latter, it is suggested that the impact of Cook’s views generally was rather limited, even though his effort in Delphi prompted Angelos Sikelianos to accelerate the creation of the Delphi Festivals. It is also suggested that Palmer-Sikelianos’ very interesting views concerning various issues were mainly owed to the Duncans as well as to the more widely popular ideas of the avant-garde movement of her times.
