An eagerly awaited Hellenic comedy is set to charm Australian audiences. Set in 1960s London, It’s All Greek To Me will premiere at South Perth’s Old Mill Theater in May.
The play, written by playwright Noel O’Neil and directed by Valerie Dragojevic, is the story of Nicolous Pilankous, aka Nicky, who gets a call from his cousin in Greece, Stavros, who is desperate to find a wife. Nicky makes a drunken pledge to find him a companion, but proves unable to keep his promise, with hilarious results.
“My inspiration for the play came from the Greeks I grew up with in London in the late ’50s and ’60s,” said O’Neil, a huge fan of Antony Quinn, who played Zorba the Greek.
O’Neil, an award-winning playwright, has also studied acting with Lee Strasberg and has participated in many off-Broadway productions. He has worked with the Old Mill and KADS Theatres, Graduate Dramatic Society and Irish Theatre Players. He is currently lecturing at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts and Perth Actors’ Collective.
He believes the most interesting element of the play is the characters gradually changing and learning from their mistakes. The director Valerie Dragojevic, said It’s All Greek To Me is “a slice of high comedy from life.” “It has a philandering husband with a suicidal wife and a son who’s one olive short of a Greek salad,” she said.