Eyes and Lies

SYNOPSIS

Eyes and Lies is a psychological drama centered on a triangular relationship in which love, desire, deception, and existential longing collide.

The play follows Alexis, a prominent cardiothoracic surgeon; Lena, a young woman trapped between longing and survival; and Miltos, her devoted but insecure husband. What begins as a secret affair between Lena and Alexis is gradually revealed to be far more complex than simple infidelity: Lena and Miltos have conspired together to conceive a child through Alexis, due to Miltos’ azoospermia.

Act I explores the intoxicating early bliss between Alexis and Lena, their philosophical debates about love, biology, truth, and lies, interwoven with passionate intimacy. The audience also learns the inner contradictions between what each character says and what each does.

Act II shifts focus to Miltos and Lena in a late-night bar, revealing the depth of their shared plan and the emotional impact it inflicts. Miltos oscillates between loyalty, jealousy, despair, and rage, culminating in a shocking revelation: he knows Lena is pregnant, and that the child is Alexis’s.

Act III brings the dramatic strands together as the lies grow untenable. Alexis, sensing something is wrong, spirals between love, insecurity, and possessiveness. Lena struggles with guilt, fear, and the impossibility of a future with Alexis. The truth threatens to rupture all three lives as the emotional and moral tensions peak.

The play ends on the precipice between revelation and collapse, a meditation on love’s illusions, the fragility of truth, and the human longing to control destiny.

CHARACTER BREAKDOWN

Lena Kefala — “the wife and the lover”

A woman shaped by a traumatic childhood, yearning for motherhood and emotional safety. Intelligent, perceptive, and emotionally volatile. She idealizes Alexis yet remains bound to Miltos by history, guilt, and dependence. Loving and manipulative, sincere yet secretive, she embodies the blurred boundary between truth and necessity.

Alexis Notaras — “the lover”

A successful cardiothoracic surgeon from an upper-class background. Highly educated, poetic, neurotic, emotionally contradictory. Torn between duty to his family and overwhelming passion for Lena. Philosophical about love yet blind to his own self-deceptions. A man whose rational mind falters before emotional obsession.

Miltos Kefalas — “the husband”

Raised in poverty, devoted to Lena, deeply insecure. His inability to have children drives the entire tragic mechanism of the plot. Simultaneously victim and accomplice. Capable of tenderness, violence, and desperate love. His unraveling in Act II exposes the psychological and moral weight of their scheme.

Michael (voice), hotel receptionists, author’s voice

Secondary voices functioning as narrative devices — revealing context, interrupting illusions, or provoking reactions.
The Author’s Voice explicitly questions the nature of love, lies, and human function — acting like a meta-theatrical chorus.