Behind the curtains

From debates between uncles to tales told to her by aunties, playwright Christine Lambrianidis has been surrounded by stories all her life. It is no wonder then, that her debut play is heavily infused with references to her Greek Australian background.

After eight years in the making, Lambrianidis is finally ready to unfurl the curtains and present The Woman in His Mind, a voyeuristic piece exploring the decaying relationship of John and Katerina, a Greek Australian couple at odds with their cultural and personal identities. At its sexually-charged surface, the story lays out archaic gender roles of the man as a dominant figure and the woman as a victim. But Lambrianidis challenges the notion of the 'victim', explaining that the male figure implied in the title is not John, rather "the world outside of John and Katerina's relationship", and that the two characters are victims of a society that has dictated who they should be, setting their gender roles and their personal and cultural identities.

"I started writing The Woman in his Mind at a stage in my life in my early twenties when I was very frustrated for being constantly stereotyped and being told I have to be this person or that person," Lambrianidis said.

Indeed, anger and frustration seem to be an inspiration as well as a running theme in the emotionally complex play. The playwright admits her admiration for ancient Greek tragedians like Sophocles, although her approach to drama is in "finding different ways of retelling well-known tragic tales" by confronting the audience with subjects normally kept behind closed doors.

Take for example, Lambrianidis' view of the characters' gender roles as an allegory for their decaying cultural roots, describing the play as "post-feminist and post-wog boy". "As John and Katerina are consumed by their sexual and cultural illusions, they embody the struggle between the culture of old Greece and the modern Greece many Greek Australians like myself experience," she said.

The parallel between the play and the playwright does not stop at Lambrianidis' personal frustrations as a young writer and her characters' struggle with their identities. Talking about how her own Greek background has inspired and influenced her writing, Lambrianidis recalls early memories of debates in her "very vocal family" where everyone has to have an opinion on something and even a trip to the grocery store can be retold to sound like an adventure.

This Hellenic flavour is peppered throughout the play, with those closest to the playwright recognising her distinctly "Greek Melburnian accent" in rhythms of the dialogue. "Language is a powerful tool. The characters use it to empower and take away power," she said. Currently working on her PhD at Monash University in Melbourne, Lambrianidis continues to explore the portrayal of Greek Australian identities onstage, studying "what it means to be Greek in 21st century Australia".

The Woman in His Mind is part of the MelBorn 2011 season by Melbourne Writers' Theatre and will premiere on Thursday, 20 October at La Mama Courthouse. For bookings, go to www.trybooking.com/WRS