Interview: Apollo Dukakis on YOU AND ME, part of OK, OLYMPIA, LET’S GO!

Boston-born Apollo Dukakis is an actor, known for Last Action Hero (1993), Hunter (1984) and American Heart (1992). But his most important lifelong role has been as the adoring brother of his sister, Academy-Award winning actress Olympia Dukakis, who left us in 2021. To honor her memory, Odyssey Theatre Ensemble is presenting OK, OLYMPIA, LET’S GO!, a multi-media celebration of her life that includes YOU AND ME, a one-act play written by Apollo, in which he also performs alongside Kandis Chappell. Performed on March 21 and 22, the event is hosted by playwright and film maker Graham Barnard with special invited guests.
 
Four-time Emmy award-winning and Academy Award-nominated actress Kathy Baker (Edward Scissorhands, The Right Stuff, The Cider House Rules, TV’s Picket Fences) will attend the performance on Saturday, March 21 to share her memories of working with Olympia during the filming of Dad, which also starred Jack Lemmon and Ted Danson, during a post-show talkback with the audience.
 
I decided to speak with Apollo Dukakis on the creation of his play, working on it with Olympia, and what insights he hopes audiences will gain about his sister’s life and career.

Apollo Dukakis
Photo by Daniel Reichert

Thanks so much for speaking with me today, Apollo. I know your play YOU AND ME began as a practical solution to your sister’s challenge, “Why don’t YOU write something?” When you sat down to write about the two of you, what surprised you most about the story that emerged?

I found the first two scenes surprisingly easy to write. They came from conversations my sister and I had repeatedly throughout the years about our parents, about our attempt to understand the struggles they had faced in their marriage when we were young, which profoundly affected both of us.

The play captures both the spirited clashes and the profound affection that defined your relationship. How did you strike the balance between honoring Olympia’s legacy and honestly depicting the friction and humor that defined your bond?

Olympia Dukakis and Apollo Dukakis, 1997
Photo courtesy of Odyssey Theatre

Quite frankly, at that time I was not interested in honoring her legacy because she was still alive. I wanted to be as honest as I could be about our personal relationship and try to capture, warts and all, that particular dynamic that was ours alone. At the same time, I hoped that it might also reflect a similar dynamic that all siblings have with each other. That’s why I did not use our real names and just had us identified as The Sister and The Brother.
 
You originally envisioned performing the play with Olympia herself. How has stepping into the role opposite Kandis Chappell changed your emotional experience of the piece?

Kandis Chappell
Photo courtesy of Odyssey Theatre Ensemble

Interesting question. I’m not sure. In the performing, I’ve tried to relate to Kandis as my sister and allow her unique rhythms to affect me in their own way. I hoped I’d written in a very specific way how Olympia behaved and how she expressed herself, and I encouraged Kandis to identify these characteristics and personalize them.
 
In your introduction, you describe rehearsing over Zoom during the pandemic while Olympia’s health was declining. How did those final creative exchanges shape the heart of the play?

They did not really change the heart of the play, but enriched it. The problem was that Olympia had suffered a small stroke which affected her vision and caused her to stumble over words. Her commitment to the piece was enormous, and she gave it her all. So we attempted to get an ear device so that her assistant might feed her the lines. Unfortunately, she became weaker so we could not pursue the project any further.

Olympia Dukakis and Apollo Dukakis,
as Prospera and Gonzalo in “The Tempest”, 2012
Photo courtesy of Odyssey Theatre

Both you and Olympia co-founded The Whole Theater Company in Montclair, New Jersey, and built a vibrant artistic home there for nearly two decades. What did that chapter of your lives mean to you both - and how does this production feel like a return to those roots?

For me, that experience consumed 15 years of my life. We both acted together there and we both directed each other in play after play. We lived only half a mile from each other, and our families were very closely involved both on and off stage. Our spouses were actors in the company as well, and our children also shared the stage in various and sundry small parts. Even our 82-year-old mother performed cameo roles in two plays. And through the years, after that theatre closed (it lasted 19 years), we performed together in various regional theatres around the country. And yes, this play, was an attempt to find something that we could do that would bring us together on stage again, as at that point we lived 3,000 miles apart.

Olympia Dukakis
Photo by Joanna Tzetzoumis

You and Olympia performed together in Mother Courage and Her Children at Shakespeare & Co., with her in one of her signature roles. How did sharing the stage with her in that production inform the dynamic you dramatize in YOU AND ME?

It was an opportunity to work together again after several years apart and I leapt at the opportunity. I’d just had a hip replacement so I was a little shaky, but I tried not to have that interfere with the experience. And we shared a house with one other actor, so that brought us to a level of closeness we’d not experienced for decades. It added to the feeling, as we were both getting older, of how we valued working together. That carried over to the present play where we were literally playing ourselves, and that felt like a gift we were giving to ourselves.

Olympia was known for her formidable strength, humor, and unmistakable presence. What aspects of her personality were most important for you to capture on the page?

Mostly her strength and her great sense of humor. She could be devastating in her humor and in her teasing of me. She was my big sister, being six years older than me. She knew me through and through and would call me out constantly with at times a biting and sarcastic quips! And she vastly enjoyed watching me take her teasing. At the same time, she was my biggest fan and relentlessly championed me to the world! Her encouragement and support meant the world to me and got me through some very tough times.
 
The evening promises to be a multimedia celebration of her life, with special guests like Kathy Baker sharing memories. How does it feel to see your personal sibling story placed within a broader public tribute to her extraordinary career?

I put the evening together which includes, besides the one-act play, two photo and film montages. The first is a still photo montage of some of her stage work plus intimate glimpses of family and friends. The other is one of scene clips from the films that she made. These montages were created and edited by her three children, Christina, Peter, and Stefan Zorich.

At its core, what do you hope audiences walk away with after experiencing YOU AND ME - not just about Olympia Dukakis the icon, but about Olympia the sister?

Actually, I’m hoping they see something in their own lives reflected by the intimate revealing of my relationship with my sister. The play is not meant to be a documentary about my sister, but rather, I’m hoping, a metaphor for what happens between all brothers and sisters who love each other unconditionally. I know Olympia would prefer that observation to the one exposing anything about her. She was always very blunt and super critical about herself and never took herself too seriously. God knows, she tried to instill that humbleness into me. I think she got that from our mother, who was always very sparing with her praise. Olympia told me that our mother once told her that she held back praise because she didn’t want Olympia “to get a swelled head!” I think she succeeded all too well!
 
Anything else you’d like to share about yourself, the OK, OLYMPIA, LET’S GO! event, or YOU AND ME?