- The Missing Bird,
- 2015
- 5 male - 4 female
Playwright: Tania Charokopou
- The Dimopoulos family is an ordinary Greek family… The father, Giannis, is a civil servant with a taste for gambling and women. The mother, Anastasia, is a plump Greek mum and homemaker. Their son, Nikos, is lazy, unemployed and not particularly bright, waiting for his big break. Their daughter, Lena, is an environmentalist with alternative ideas and views. The two siblings are constantly at each other’s throats. Next door live the Oikonomou family: Kaiti, a woman in her fifties who tries to look thirty; Stratos, who works from morning till night to satisfy her every wish; and their daughter, Maria. The two families’ lives are thoroughly entangled. Giannis is having an affair with Kaiti, who takes money from him to cover her “needs”. Kaiti, however, is in love with Nikos and pays him for occasional sexual encounters with the money she receives from his father. Giannis embezzles money from his workplace to meet his various needs. Nikos asks him for a share to “invest” in business ventures, Kaiti wants money for jewellery, Lena for environmental research, and Anastasia to put into savings. Led astray by a conman, Nikos uses the money his father has given him to commission a replica of an ancient statue, which they sell to an Englishman who pays them with bad cheques. A succession of farcical complications ensues between the two families, until they find themselves facing a prosecutor: Giannis for the embezzlement that has come to light; Nikos for selling the statue; the Englishman for issuing bad cheques; and Kaiti for stealing jewellery so that she can give Nikos the money she received from Giannis. When the others are sent to prison, Anastasia and Stratos, left behind, discover how well suited they are to each other. Lena and Maria leave together to devote themselves to protecting the environment.