THE MATCHMAKER
by Thornton Wilder

THE MATCHMAKER

by Thornton Wilder

Directed by Thomas Moschopoulos

From 9 February 2024

The Matchmaker (1954), by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Thornton Wilder, is an entertaining comedy about people's need for companionship and how they have to reconcile themselves with difficult realities.
 
A journey to 19th-century New York begins for the heroes of the play: Dolly, Horace, his two young employees, and his niece, who is pining for the artist that her uncle has forbidden her to marry. The common goal of all the characters on this journey is to break the vicious circle of their loneliness. Unexpected events masterfully staged by the shrewd Dolly create a farcical backdrop with a frenzy of comic set-pieces, all undershot with a seriousness derived from the first version of the play, The Merchant of Yonkers, written in 1938 at the tail-end of the Great Depression. The characters, living in an uncertain world, have no time for extraneous idealising. The pursuit of the absolute and the perfect is a pointless luxury for them. Determined to live as best they can, they enter the game of companionship with realistic expectations, searching for attainable happiness.
 
Production team
Translator and director: Thomas Moschopoulos
Set design: Evaggelia Therianou
Costume design: Claire Bracewell
Movement: Sofia Paschou
Lighting design: Nikos Vlassopoulos
Dramaturg: Eva Saraga
Directing assistant: Giorgos Pavlou:
Set design assistant: Genevieve Athanasopoulou
 
Cast (in alphabetical order):
Alkis Bakoyannis, Thanassis Dimou, Vivi Fotopoulou, Galini Hatzipaschali, Simos Kakalas, Ioannis Mistakidis, Rania Oikonomidou, Panos Papadopoulos, Thanasis Raftopoulos, Evdokia Roumelioti, Giannis Sampsalakis, Fotis Stratigos, Melina Vampoula