- The Unknown Sperm,
- 2015
- 4 male - 3 female
Playwright: Tania Charokopou
- At forty-five, Pavlina feels she has missed every opportunity to start a family, having devoted herself entirely to her career. She decides to turn to a friend, Stelios, a well-known obstetrician, to help her become a mother. The sperm donor, Manos, is a handsome associate of the doctor who has undergone thorough genetic screening. Pavlina confides in her friend Olga. Although Olga tries to persuade her to conceive the traditional way, Pavlina does not want her baby to be the result of a fleeting, chance romance. Realising that her friend is determined, Olga agrees to accompany her to Stelios’s surgery and support her. They do not tell Pavlina’s mother, Betty, what they are planning, because she is deaf and misinterprets what is said, catching only the endings of words. On the day of their visit, the doctor’s assistant, Marios, who is gay and dislikes Olga, is at the surgery. Johnny emerges from the consulting room, and Pavlina recognises him as one of her employees. He has come to provide a sperm sample for his wife’s treatment. The encounter is a pleasant surprise, and Olga flirts openly with him. Manos also arrives to provide his sample for Pavlina and receive his payment. Once the samples have been collected, the doctor calls Marios, who is still trading barbs and witty remarks with Olga, and hands him the two tubes containing Manos’s and Johnny’s sperm. Marios mixes them up, trips and spills the contents, mainly from one tube, onto the floor. In a panic, he produces his own sperm sample, refilling one tube and topping up the other. Pavlina becomes pregnant, but Johnny’s wife does not. With sperm from Johnny, Marios and Manos mixed in the tubes, no one knows who the father is. The doctor tells Pavlina what has happened, setting off a succession of comic mishaps, jokes and twists, many involving Marios. Eventually, they decide to have a DNA test, which reveals that Johnny is the father. He has always been secretly in love with Pavlina. Delighted, the two decide to marry, while Olga proposes to the doctor…