“Theatre matters because it’s the last actual live form of human communication between people whereby you can express the most fundamental thoughts, ideas, emotions that exist in society and do it instantaneously and it has a direct contact with people” (Bruno and Dixon, 2014, 5).
The point of my performance is to educate and introduce the Greek Cypriot heritage and community to the Lincolnshire audience, incorporating an underlying theme of ‘bitter sweetness’. My home town in the UK is London, Wembley to be precise where the Greek Cypriot community is huge. In North London there are many Greeks and people know about us and our ways. They probably hear us before they see us! Greeks are known for being extremely loud.
Well yes, I do love being Greek and I couldn’t imagine being anything else. My friends and people who get to know me are always saying “I wish my family were like yours, always together around each other, so close” etc. Yeah it’s great and I love my family dearly however having this stereotypical, loud, big Greek family can have its limits. At times I could just be sitting there thinking “give me a break” it can get all too much. The reason for this bitter sweet theme.
Being Greek comes with a lot of baggage and expectations too. For example the War between Cyprus and Turkey. Even though I was not alive when it happened, there is still bitter rivalry’s! My Grandmas (Yiayia’s) I love them but sometimes with their old fashioned ways, it can be a bit too much. I’m sitting here wishing they would get to grips with this generation and the 21st century! I suppose they could be worse and believe in (Proxenia) which basically means having an arranged marriage. I can’t believe some families of the Greek Community use to do that! One of my Yiayias had an arranged marriage! Poor woman no offence to my grandad (Bapou).
Being fluent in the Greek Language is amazing, I still sometimes can’t believe I speak two languages! The Greek language is not one of the easiest to learn either. My friends and people who meet me always think it’s amazing and are always getting me to say loads of words. That sounds cool, right? Well it’s not cool how I learn though. So of course when you are younger, you go to school Monday to Friday. Well us Greeks had to go to school on Saturday, Greek School. How boring. My friends would always go out and have plans for the weekend. But us, Greek kids would have to miss out as we only got Sunday off and Sunday is family day.
This is my life and my community. This is all I know and I want to incorporate my stories with other people’s stories. A Greek Cypriot experience through an autobiographical performance. Viewing moments of laughter and light-heartedness clashing with the challenges of being raised as a Greek Cypriot. I want to share this bitter sweet feeling with the audience and educate them, while being educated myself from them.
“The audience becomes the director. When you get in front of the audience their response their attitudes, their laughter, their silence, will tell you, will teach you. A one man show is live a love affair with an audience. It’s a very private thing” (Bruno and Dixon, 2014, 5).
Bruno, S. and Dixon, L. (2014). Creating solo performance. New York: Routledge.