Friday evening at Pallas Theater in the center of Athens was the premiere of "Απατεώνες και Τζέντλεμεν" with Yianis Bezos, Petros Filippidis and Katerina Papoutsaki. A comedy with songs and dances and with the stylish dresses, handbags and shoes by Vassilis Zoulias and hats by Katerina Karoussos.
"Απατεώνες και Τζέντλεμεν" is based on the film Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988) with Steve Martin and Michail Caine, a loose remake of the original screenplay Bedtime Story (1964) with Marlon Brando, David Niven and Shirley Jones, written by Paul Henning.
Freddy Benson (Petros Filippidis) is a crass, loud American. Laurence Jameson (Yianis Bezos) is a suave, urbane European. Their common ground is that they both are confidence men, and they meet in a train compartment as Benson is scamming his way across Europe, taking advantage of women's generosity.
The two are forced into a rivalry, which culminates in a wager to see who can be the first to bilk $50,000 out of American heiress Janet Colgate (Katerina Papoutsaki). Their game of one-upmanship is, of course, brought to ridiculous heights as things progress.
A very funny part of the play is Filippidis' role as cohort is to assume the persona of Ruprecht, the "special" younger brother intended to scare off potential brides.
Once the bet is on, though, Filippidis slips into his overly earnest mode as an American military man suffering from hysterical paralysis, with Bezos as a psychologist who takes on his case. All in all,
the play is a droll, intelligent comedy, short on knee slappers but long on comic situations and characterizations. The dresses and costumes and the backdrops are worth seeing too.
Here a few snapshots of the guests.
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