Laurels and Oleanders

A timeless political satire about the seats of power and the illusions of democracy.

“As long as Dimitris exists, there will be others,” the great theatre master Karolos Koun used to say about Kehayidis. This year, 20 years after the death of Dimitris Kehayidis, the Municipal Regional Theatre of Kalamata honors his memory with the play Laurels and Oleanders. Laurels for the timelessness of this delightful political satire on our morals, and Oleanders because the play, written in 1979, feels as if it was written yesterday, today, and, I fear, even tomorrow.

The poetic voice of Kehayidis and the sarcasm of Chaviaras, “three tape recorders and a typewriter,” four years of writing and many more of their shared life, gave us “an almost theatrical masterpiece,” as noted by the critics of the time.

Four party leaders, on the eve of elections, scheme, bluff, and conspire on the felt of our public life — “for an empty shirt,” for a chair...

Manos Karatzogiannis