Ange Arabatzis has always had an empathy and a love for the arts. In video production for over 15 years, he says it was a natural progression that drew him to acting, directing and writing. About seven years ago, Ange took up acting. Since then, the Greek Australian has been honing his craft and developing his skills in scriptwriting and directing which has led him to direct his first feature play, Oleanna. One week out from its debut performance, Ange took some time to talk to us about his career thus far, Oleanna and future plans.
“Directing, writing and acting are three parts of the same entity and they all feed into each other,” explains Ange, who says the more he directs, the more plays he reads and works with, the more it helps in all aspects of his chosen career.
“It’s all been a natural progression,” he tells Neos Kosmos, “even shooting weddings, which I was doing for quite a few years, it all fed into my work as a director in a way, as you have to manage people and emotions.”
Acting and directing was something that he wanted to do, but says that he needed to “go through some sort of apprenticeship, get life experience” so he could take the next step. Since he went on this journey, he has made quite a few short films, and starred in television series such as Underbelly and Sea Patrol. In Crash Test Drama – a one day drama competition – the play he wrote and directed was so well received that both the actors in it won awards.
A couple of years ago, he put on informal acting workshops to complete the training he had received alongside actors he had met along the way. Two of those actors, Greg Pandelidis and Melissa Karakaltsas, are the leads in Oleanna.
They would meet on a weekly basis and it got to the point where they wanted to challenge themselves. A play would be the way. They realised a lot of the work they were doing was written by David Mamet, and chose his play Oleanna to perform not only because of the logistics – minimal characters, one set, easy set up – but also because of the challenging content.
“The dynamic between teacher and student is a dynamic that interests me because of my own personal experience with teachers,” Ange says.
“I wasn’t a good student at school as I had a huge distrust of teachers and didn’t buy into the authority and the whole ‘I know more than you’. This play explores that in quite a balanced way so it was really good for me to question my own beliefs on the dynamic and who is actually teaching who.”
Ange believes that teachers have a lot to learn from students too – a two-way street – and says this play has brought up a lot of questions for him too. Not only that, Ange looks at his own cultural background and says that this creates another element to his work. An element that is specific to him, but also the leads in the play being both Greek Australian too. Not to mention his sister Anna Arabatzis as the producer of the play.
“It comes through my own cultural filter,” says Ange about his Hellenism filtering its way in.
“Everything I do I am conscious of letting it all come through and not try to make it a particular way because I have my own particular issues and things to deal with – and they can be a cultural thing too.
“The whole Greek cultural thing; I think it comes through the work but I don’t make a conscious effort to make it about that because I trust that it will come through. If I do force it, then my work will become contrived, so I try to trust that it will come through on its own.”
Ange and his sister Anna grew up loving the arts. With similar tastes in film and theatre, it was undeniable that the two would eventually work together.
“I am very lucky to be working with her for the first time as a brother and sister collaboration and it is long overdue,” he says.
“It’s brought us closer together and we’ve learnt how to communicate with each other on an artistic level, which is extremely enriching for us as well.”
For now, Ange’s mind is filled with this play but that doesn’t stop him from looking to the future, where script development, writing, acting and directing features highly. And it’s not just here in Australia; he has his eyes firmly set on the Big Apple. Ange will be moving to New York later this year to study and work on his screenplay with a view to filming on location in Melbourne next year. The autobiographical story will be set among iconic locations in Brunswick and Yarraville – to name a few.
“The respect for the theatre and the arts in general permeates through the whole city,” Ange says of his decision to move abroad.
“Here we do have a strong arts community but there’s not the support for it and there’s not enough people here so everything is very sparse. There’s a lot of good stuff happening but not enough people to go around.”

Everything I do I am conscious of letting it all come through and not try to make it a particular way because I have my own particular issues and things to deal with – and they can be a cultural thing too.

Oleanna, presented by Art of State and Antipodes Festival, will run until 14 July at Revolt Melbourne Artspace, 12 Elizabeth St, Kensington, Melbourne. For tickets and more information visit www.antipodesfestival.com.au/antipodes-events/david-mamets-oleanna/