Things were different when Eugenia Fragos was growing up. It was the ’70s. Her parents were migrants and worked hard, and many children of migrants were reminded of this fact daily. They worked for the future of their family, and to see their daughter prosper. This was Eugenia’s first hurdle.
Then there were the connotations that surrounded being an actor in the ’70s.
“It was akin to being a whore,” Eugenia tells me, “being an actress in those days still had those ‘loose woman’ connotations.”
In spite of this, Eugenia found a way for her strict family to allow her a free pass out of Greek school on Saturdays in order to rehearse for a high school play that would appear in the Adelaide Festival. A big, very big deal for her teenage self. It took two brave teachers – her English and drama teacher – to make this happen. The teachers set up a meeting with her father, and convinced him to allow their ‘good Greek girl’ to let go of Greek school and pursue an option in the arts.
“That beautiful drama teacher convinced my dad it was okay and he made a pact with me that I could do it in year 10 and 11 and that was it,” she says adding that her father was hoping Eugenia would get the ‘acting bug’ out of her system.
On the surface, it looked like she had. After high school, Eugenia enrolled in economics, taking the traditional path most often walked in those times. But she knew it wasn’t for her, and when her confidence rose, she left economics and went to the Victorian College of the Arts to follow her passion.
“For a lot of us, it takes a little while to find that path… but I think my parents were very relieved when I finally did get into drama school because they thought ‘at least she is studying something’.”
But it was a scholarship to Greece that reintroduced her to her identity, something she was fighting in Australia due to the patriarchy of Greek Australian society at that time, and something that has filtered into her acting and the choices presented to her.
We all know Eugenia as an actress. We’ve seen her as the supportive Greek Australian mother in Head On, or the superstitious, complex Greek Australian mother in Dead Europe. But it’s just that. Even though her relationship with Greek Australian author Christos Tsiolkas is “one of the fundamental relationships in my artistic soul life”, she says one of her most important works to date was the one that allowed her to shake up racial stereotypes, not just in society but in the world of theatre and film. Who’s Afraid of the Working Class? is the work she’s the most proud of.
“I was allowed as a Greek performer not to be just a Greek mother – and I don’t mean just or putting shit on the Greek mothers – but I was allowed to play the white trash mother, I was allowed to play a prostitute,” she says almost excitedly.
“The richness that comes when that is adhered to as a practice never ceases to astound me. I just hope that as a culture we can continue to embrace that as a notion. God knows what we can unleash instead of pigeonholing everybody… there is so much to bring to the table from everybody.”
This play was also significant for yet another reason; it was the first real time she worked with Christos.
“He’s an extraordinary human being,” she says, taking her time to choose her description of Christos.
“He’s inspiring. He’s generous. He’s intelligent and he’s a real leader in our community, and not just in the Greek community. I am continually astounded by people who say Head On changed their life, that film and the book Loaded.
“Even young people now, because my kids are in their early 20s and they are reading Loaded, Dead Europe, so it’s very fruitful relationship and one that I feel very privileged to have in my working life.”
By working with Christos, Eugenia is free to do the type of work she loves. Work that treads a line; that has something to say; that makes people think and touches them in a way they didn’t expect.
“I don’t want this to sound arrogant, but it’s very easy to move people. I mean, people cry watching The Biggest Loser… Tears are cheap,” she says.
“But to be able to make people think and to remind us of our humanity – it’s a different ball game,” adding that her work with Christos does just that. Even the work The Slap garnered such a phenomenal response from Australia – an unexpected response – proving to us all that we are thirsty for television that gives a true representation of what it is to be Australian.
A multi-faceted actress who can flip from theatre, to film to television, I couldn’t help but ask her what her preference was. Live theatre or film and TV? She was quick to point out she has no preference, as long as the work says “something that needs to be said or hasn’t quite been said”.
“I am quite political and I like work that is commenting on our society in some way.”
The latest play she’s starring in does just that. Palace of the End is a trio of monologues that tell the stories of three people forever impacted by the war in Iraq. Eugenia plays Nehrjas al Saffarh – a well known member of the Communist Party of Iraq and mother of four. al Saffarh was tortured by Saddam Hussein’s secret police in the 1970s, and died when Americans bombed her home during the first Gulf War. Eugenia points out the parallels to Greece and the rise of the Communist Party following WWII, and the fact that Greece’s landscape would have been a whole different story had it not been for American backing – similarly with Iraq.
“It’s a story of a left-wing woman, and I think we are also at a time when we are a bit politically lost because of the failures of the left … it’s good to be reminded that there were people who really did believe in these ideals and were prepared to fight to the death and put their own lives on the line for the greater goo,d so hers is one of those stories.”
For her research into this role – which is one of the many things Eugenia loves about her career choice; research into a role, the education ‘feeds her character’ – she went along to a talk entitled ‘The Iraq War: Discussing social responsibility’. One of the speakers there, Michael Leunig, touched Eugenia with his words, making her feel ashamed for her role, as an Australian, in the Iraq war.
“He said this really interesting thing, that when that force of militarism is unleashed there is also a bloodlust that is released, and he could not fathom why we as a nation were going to invade this other country,” she says. But what stood out for Eugenia was when he said that in that moment he lost his Australian identity, and hasn’t regained it, and feels as though he doesn’t belong here anymore.
“I want to take that feeling through into this play; to remind people that Australia was part of that.”

I am quite political and I like work that is commenting on our society in some way.

To learn her lines for this play, Eugenia called upon the help of her mother; her Cypriot mother, who looked at the situation of war in this play and remembered her experiences in the ’70s – when Turkey invaded Cyprus.

“It was the only time I’ve seen my father cry,” says Eugenia of her stoic Greek father.

But even though the times have changed, – since Eugenia’s experiences in the ’70s – and we’ve learnt from our past, in war ne never do. From the Cyprus to Iraq, when will we truly learn the devastation?
Palace of the End, written by Judith Thompson and directed by Daniel Clarke, is on at Theatre Works, 14 Acland Street, St Kilda, from 6 to 16 June. For more information and tickets visit theatreworks.org.au