The Creative Centre of Drama and Arts of the Greek Community of Melbourne is taking theatre all the way back to its roots with a performance at the Fairfield Amphitheatre.
Directed by Jeremy Artis, Alone (Μόνοι) is a collection of monologues performed in Greek, taken from a range of 14 independent texts, poems and songs by creators throughout the ages like Shakespeare, Tennessee Williams, Peresiadis and Chekhov.
Although their works appear to be completely unrelated to one another, together they form the show’s message.
“While there is no beginning, middle and end in the strict sense of the term, there is an emotional curve that we want the viewer to follow. We do not seek to connect Blanche with Golfo, but to identify Blanche’s feeling, with his own and consequently with that of the actress who plays the character,” Artis tells Neos Kosmos.
The cast is comprised of eight amateur actors including Eleni Baveli and Ioanna Gagani, who along with their fellow castmates had to employ some more unorthodox methods to rehearse their roles.
“We started before I don’t know which lockdown, I’ve lost count. So we were doing face to face, we actually started working on some monologues that some of us had chosen. Then we went into lockdown, but we continued on Zoom, meeting one on one with Jeremy working on the monologues,” Gagani said.
“I think it was just a natural progression because we really wanted to present something and we didn’t want to stay out of the scene for too long because our last performance was in 2020.”
It was with this determination of ‘the show must go on’ that the whole cast and crew pushed through the barriers put up by the pandemic.
“It’s not the easiest thing in the world, but from the beginning I had set a goal to achieve some results regardless of the circumstances. The format of the project is so dynamic that it can be supported even through the screen if needed,” Artis explained.
Alone itself explores its title, with the show being born of the isolation and motions that the world went through tackling the pandemic.
Eleni and Ioanna experienced the pandemic in two different ways, but both poured their experiences into their characters.
“I was so fed up with lockdown because I was working from home, studying online and I felt there was a little bit of a disconnection because suddenly theatre and rehearsals became one more thing that I had to do through Zoom. Being in the space and working together is one of the aspects that I enjoy the most about theatre. You leave your home and you step into a creative space. The energy is completely different, so it lost its spark and I withdrew from the Zoom rehearsals,” Eleni said.
“My character talks a little bit about dying, in a very funny way. She’s in her coffin buried and she just talks about how trapped she feels. I could say that was the easiest way to be able to embody being locked down and everything being online and not being close to the outside world.”
Ioanna on the other hand, managed to have more time on her hands and let go of some of the day-to-day tasks that often caused her some stress.
“The link with my character is that my character also has a very different experience to the majority of people. I was the same; everyone was like oh, I can’t stand it anymore and I was like I’m fine, I’m loving it. I don’t have to drive the kids to school. I don’t have to make school lunches and things like that. I still go out and see people,” she said.
In finding their characters within themselves, the thespians also came to learn more about themselves. There was a new vulnerability to be discovered rehearsing and uncovering their roles in a space that was not connected with being a creative space.
“Every single character teaches you something, every single thing teaches you something, particularly that comedic monologue. It allowed me to ridicule myself a little bit more. They say comedy is a lot harder than drama. Leaving your self-consciousness out of the window, so that has definitely been something that I’ve taken on board,” Baveli said.
“In the bigger picture of the group, because we’re also very different, it allowed me to accept the different types of people, different characters a lot better because everyone brings something in that’s completely different.”
Catch actors Syrmo Kapoutsi, Niki Skouri, Maria Bakalidou, Costas Stefanidis, Pam Pollali, Ioanna Gagani, Eleni Baveli, and Maria-Stella Papacheorgi performing Alone (Μόνοι) on Saturday, 26 February at the Fairfield Amphitheater and Sunday, 20 March, on the mezzanine floor of the Greek Centre. Get your tickets at trybooking.com
