Mother and daughter perform at Covent Garden for charity
Actresses Nonika Galinea and Amalia Moutoussi, mother and daughter, will perform two separate one-act plays, August Strindberg’s «The Stronger» and Tennessee Williams’s «Something Unspoken,» at London’s Covent Garden Theater on Sunday. In addition to the works and the actresses’ abilities, it is highly interesting that two Greek actresses are going to present the plays abroad and in English. This is one of the rare stage collaborations between mother and daughter and all proceeds will be donated to Doctors without Borders. France-based Yiannis Kokkos is directing. Kokkos said that he was very pleased to be involved with the performance. He has formed a deep friendship with Moutoussi after meeting her in a production of «The Oresteia.» «Amalia is an actress who can shape old characters in a contemporary way,» he said at a recent press conference. «I have been admiring Nonika for a long time, it is a great experience to meet two great actresses and to have the opportunity to discuss with them issues like psychological struggles which, when gradually laid bare, reach their simplest and most tragic form.» «In Strindberg’s play, two women come into great conflict and their relationship seems almost supernatural. In Williams’s play, there are, once more, two women but one of them has awesome, almost mythological characteristics: She is a mature woman who witnesses her own collapse and also collapses in front of another woman, who might be her secretary.» Galinea, a graduate of London’s Webber School of Drama, referred to the production as a «new theatrical experience.» «I am anticipating this theatrical moment with the impatience and the emotions of a schoolgirl, but I also feel justified for the work I have put into the theater for the past 40 years.» When Moutoussi, who studied acting in New York, heard the proposition, she responded immediately. «I found the idea very interesting, but I was anxious about my involvement with my two characters. We have two separate plays in one performance, therefore the different interpretations of these individual parts must bring to the surface the uniting points of the two plays.» Galinea claimed that her relationship with Moutoussi was beneficial to their stage collaboration. Moutoussi, on the other hand, said she believes that when creating art, we can use any means, as long as we know how to use it and what we are using it for. «But the relationship between the actors on stage must start from zero,» she said. Following London, the show will be performed in Greek at the Athens Concert Hall next year.
