Greek Canadian Angelo Tsarouchas and Greek-born George Zacharopoulos may share a vocation and an ethnicity, but what truly unites them and the many Greeks of the diaspora is a certain defiance. It comes in many forms. It’s a defiance to not only be defined by their Greek background, while at the same time also being proud of their heritage and finding a way to fit into a foreign culture.

Now based in Los Angeles, Tsarouchas explained this tight rope act that occurs around periods such as Easter.

“Last week everyone kept telling me ‘Happy Easter’ and I’m like, ‘It’s not my Easter, it’s yours. This is the rehearsal Easter’,” he tells Neos Kosmos.

“I told my daughter who is in school ‘We can celebrate Easter with your cousins, but the real Easter is next week, which is our Easter’. She said ‘Okay daddy’. But my wife who’s Armenian said ‘Don’t tell her that’. Then I said ‘Every Greek brainwashes their kid and I’m no different’. But sometimes we defy that and we say, ‘We’re not going to be Greek like that’ but we’re very much like that.”

Tsarouchas says that for Greeks who marry into different nationalities trying to curb this behaviour is not an option.

“Any time you enter a Greek marriage, whether you’re male or female, for the most part, 99 per cent of the time, the Greek part is the dominant part,” he says.
“Whether it’s the male or the female, I’m telling you those kids are getting raised Greek. The husband or the wife better learn how to speak Greek or eat Greek!”
Tsarouchas also says that Hellenes can’t help being a product of their environment.

“At the end of the day we’re Greeks. You can talk about not being really Greek. No, you’re Greek. If you come from Greek lineage we all have the same experiences. That’s where a lot of my comedy derives from. It’s not just the actual Greek-isms, it’s the mentality and that mentality of ‘What is this?’ the ‘Τι είναι αυτό;’.”

Meanwhile, this is George Zacharopoulos’ fourth time in Australia and his show Greek Unorthodox tackles his Greek upbringing. He was born in Greece but has been based in the UK for over a decade and says that you can rebel against being Greek up to a point.

“I am proud to be Greek, but I don’t want to be Greek like my parents want me to be Greek or my grandparents,” he tells Neos Kosmos. “I consider myself a person first and a Greek person later. I am myself. Growing up Greek has given me some inferences, it’s given me some values, some ethics and some morals but I want to reject the ones I don’t like.

“Doesn’t the spirit of being Greek mean being a bit defiant? But not against your mother, be defiant against everyone else but don’t mess with your mum.”
Zacharopoulos says while his career choice was a form of rebellion it was also an act of defiance against the hard-working Greek stereotype.
“My dad always said to me that the Greek word for work is ‘δουλειά’ and a slave is ‘δούλος’,” he says.

“If work was fun they wouldn’t have called it ‘δουλεια’ they would have called it something different. It’s a very sad approach for something that you will be doing for the rest of your life.

“My idea is that if I do something I love, and I am good at it then I will work harder, but it will never feel like I am working. Then eventually if I am good enough people will buy into it and I will make some money. “Whereas my dad always assumed that the best way to go forward is not to care about your own happiness, just work like a donkey.”

Angelo Tsarouchas has performed in Greece and in front of Greeks all over the diaspora and he discovered that both groups have flaws that can be mined for comedy.

“My father left Greece in 1949 after civil war, which he said was worse than World War II,” he says.

“He went to Canada for a better life. I have a cousin who called me from Greece and he said ‘you know cousin, I am 39 years old and I think it’s time for me to get a job’. I said ‘Yo Dimitri, I am glad you didn’t rush into it!’

“There are certain things that I do because of my Greek upbringing. And there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s good. But sometimes in the diaspora we are proud to a fault and that might turn some people off. Such as if I go to a Greek restaurant and there isn’t Greeks running it, I don’t eat there.”

For George Zacharopoulos he doesn’t just defy his Greekness; living in the UK for over a decade has made him vigilant in not adopting certain English traits.
“I went to Britain when I was 18 years old to study,” he says. “At 18 you’re still very malleable. So yes, the Britishness has seeped into me. But I’m resisting it, trust me.

“I don’t like how British people are self-deprecating. Greeks, don’t get me wrong, we like to moan as well. But we do it in a much different way. We moan about it, then we shout about it, then we get it out of our system and then we go back to normal mode. But British people, they will moan about it and hold it inside for years and then wonder why they have cancer.”

Though he has made a career in poking fun at Greek culture there is one attribute that Tsarouchas feels is at the heart of Greeks and it’s one that’s very serious.
“It’s filotimo,” he says.

“That’s the most powerful word that Greeks have universally. No other culture or race has that word and we need to see more Greek films and artists that display that. There are so many things that support and rise up a culture and people. That’s what makes us as Greeks different from anybody else in the world.”
Zacharopoulos also feels there is another trait that is one of the hallmarks of Greeks worldwide but one that’s pure comedy.

“I was at the 25 March parade at Federation Square in Melbourne,” he says. “I saw a 35-year-old man holding his baby, and his wife and other child were also sitting next him. They had the biggest Australian accents, but they clearly looked Greek. His mother was also there and she kept on giving him shit for not eating these meatballs that she had in Tupperware.

“She also had an Australian accent, so presumably she came here when she was younger or was born here. It was a very funny thing to watch, it made me laugh so much, but it was also very sweet. Seeing this adult man mothered and smothered by his mum I thought ‘Yep, I am amongst my own!”

Catch Angelo Tsarouchas’ ‘Appetite for Discussion’ at: 

· Melbourne International Comedy Festival at the Greek Centre 10-22 April.
· Sydney Comedy Festival at the Factory Theatre on 28 & 29 April.
· Perth Comedy Festival at The Hellenic Club of WA on 1 May.

George Zacharopoulos is performing ‘Greek Unorthodox’ at the Carlton Club until 21 April.