Christos Tsiolkas’ debut novel, “Loaded,” published in 1995, has been adapted into a play co-written by Dan Giovannoni and Tsiolkas, directed by Stephen Nicolazzo, and is currently showing at the Malthouse until June 3.

In 1995, Tsiolkas threw a literary hand grenade into Australia’s cultural milieu with “Loaded” and disrupted the acceptable “funny wog,” “victim wog,” and “good wog” tropes of Australia’s cultural landscape.

“Loaded” catapulted Tsiolkas into the limelight, and the book freed those of us who, were not καλα παιδια (kala pethia) or good Greek kids.

“Loaded” was a warning to middle-class Australia that we are not all funny or polite wogs.

The story follows the 19-year-old Ari for 24 hours across Melbourne as he takes drugs, hooks up with men, and rages at hypocrisy. Ari has a Greek lust for life as a queer son of migrants, who has grown up in an suburban Australia of the 1980s.

The sex, drugs, and music are not for escapes. He feels the profound injustices that confront a working-class queer “wog.”

Ari is played by Danny Ball who has worked with Belvoir Theatre, Queensland Theatre Company, and in the SBS television production A Beginner’s Guide to Grief among many other roles on stage and screen.

Transporting and making relevant the fervor of the book now is tough, but director Stephen Nicolazzo believes he has done just that.

Nicolazzo has an impressive record; he was the Artistic Director of Little Ones Theatre, known for its innovative queer theatre, and then took the role of Co-Artistic Director of Western Edge.

His body of work has harvested 12 Green Room Awards and 41 nominations since 2012, fortifying his status as a key figure in the Australian theatre scene.

Nicolazzo says that while the book has been updated to reflect the now, the 2020s,”it still asks the questions it did back then, but through the lens of today’s second-generation migrants.”

He and Tsiolkas, second-generation children of immigrants, believe that class is being identity-washed.

“Christos and I talk about economic class all the time, something that has been forgotten, you know, that world of working-class migrants from southern Europe,” he says. “Loaded” challenges most of the current narratives of identity, which I am bored with, as is Christos,” he says.

“The histories of working-class wogs are being buried beneath Melbourne’s gentrification and cultural homogenous notions of ‘diversity.'”

“Ari looks at what happened to Collingwood and says, ‘once I was a wog, and he was a black fella, and we were all part of the working class, but now it’s fucking Greens stickers and rainbow flags.”

From Collingwood to Thornbury, virtuous middle-class professionals now determine who is ‘diverse enough’ and who isn’t. Forty years ago, the same types branded us ‘wogs’ or saw us as exotic victims. Now they brand us as ‘white’ and ‘privileged.’

Nicolazzo says that “Loaded” is “the perfect project” for him.

“It is the distillation of everything that I’ve been angry and furious and passionate about for my entire career; it’s all in one show.”

The director adds that he feels things under the skin, the stuff that makes your blood boil, have been released.

“What pisses me off is that we talk about identity politics and colour and positionality, but class has become a dirty word.” Nicolazzo says that he is “bored of this and angry” with the current discussions on identity.

“We can’t ignore economic class and class conflict when it comes to these conversations.” But he also believes that “the pendulum will swing back eventually. I have been talking to Christos about that stuff for ages.”

“Loaded” as theatre for now, from all accounts seems to punch as well as Tsiolkas’ novel did in 1995. Nicolazzo and his co-conspirator Christos Tsiolkas have come to disturb many of the dominant narratives surrounding identity, class, and culture in Australia by loading the narrative in a new and contemporary setting.

For tickets go to: www.malthousetheatre.com.au

A celebration night for Greek & queer communities and their friends

Friday 19 May

6pm – 6.40pm / Pre-show In Conversation with Christos Tsiolkas and Maria Dimopoulos AM with an audience Q&A

7pm / Performance of Loaded

8.45pm – 10.30pm / Afterparty

Featuring Cats and the Canary (Greek Swing)

Opening act: Artemis Ioannides