The first English speaking theater in Athens is already 7 months old

Yoel Wolfhart and his team have created a non-profit art space catering to a multi-cultural English speaking audience in the Greek capital who want to enjoy quality performances  

It is Thursday (or in Theater of the No terms “NO Comedy Thursday”) and Walter has the mic. Judging by his accent, he is from the US -like most of the stand-up comedians he introduces on stage after him. President-elect Trump is, of course, one of the main topics of the bits, as well as issues that have to do with the peculiarities of life in Greece from a non-Greek’s point of view, sex, aging, family drama, etc.

As I sit and listen to the artists in an audience comprising mostly Greeks, many expats and a few tourists, I think of the first show I saw on this stage about 7 months ago, Samuel Beckett’s masterpiece “Waiting for Godot”. It was the very first show ever presented by The Theatre of the No, the first and only English-speaking theatre in Greece, located in the heart of Athens. By all accounts it was a huge success, with stunning performances from a multinational cast. A Q&A session followed between the audience, the actors, the director and Yoel Wulfhart, the heart and soul of the whole endeavour.

“My story is evolving,” Mr. Wulfhart will tell me later when I ask him how the new theatre is going and if it’s living up to his expectations, “but basically it’s the same. What did King Solomon say: ‘There is nothing new under the sun’? Becket said: ‘the sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new’. Someone has a dream, tries to make it happen. It happens in part, it will happen in full. We have done what we set out to do, which is theatre in English. We’ve already done 6 productions this year, we’ll do 6 or 7 next year, and we want to do Shakespeare, Kafka, quality work in the original language of the plays. We have 25 people here from different backgrounds and nationalities. It’s an exciting mix of cultures coming together and creating something completely different and exciting“.

Athens is the world capital of theater

Despite what he says, Mr Wulfhart’s story is not an ordinary one. Born in Israel, he moved to the USA to pursue a career in the theatre. He soon realised that it would be very difficult to make a good living in that field, so he decided to focus on various other business ventures. However, the artform has always been a part of his life and he even founded a theatre in Philadelphia where he lived.

At the age of 50, he left everything behind to travel the world, mostly by car. A journey that lasted 18 years: “It was all about freedom,” he told me of those years. “I travelled very slowly, stopped whenever I got tired and made many good friends along the way. Wherever I was, I was always at home, but I remember that when I was travelling through Europe and passed by Greece, I thought to myself: ‘When I get tired of travelling, I will settle here’. I bought an apartment in Athens eight years ago, and a year and a half ago I was tired of travelling.

It was not only the beauty of the country that captured his heart, or the Greeks’ tendency to follow no rules (something close to his own philosophy), but as he soon found out, and as he puts it: “Athens is the greatest theatre city in the world. Without a doubt. New York doesn’t have 400 theatres. It is closer to 150. Athens does. Philadelphia, where I used to live, the fifth largest city in the USA, has maybe 30 theatres. Within a kilometre and a half of this place (the theatre of the No is near Vathi Square) there are 11 drama schools!”

Quality theater and music

It is not only theatre that has a special place in the Theatre of the No, but also music, especially the genres that are harder to find here in Greece, as Yoel Wolhart explains: “One of the things we’re trying to establish is that people will eventually know that if it’s a Saturday night, for example, there’s jazz at the Theatre of the No, and it doesn’t matter who’s playing, it’s going to be good. The same goes for NO blues nights or NO opera and so on. And we do this for the love of art, not for profit. When you depend on the theatre for your financial survival, you try to do things that most people like. We have the freedom to do what we want.”

I ask him who comes to his theatre and he says that 70% of the audience is Greek and they come either because they want to see the plays in their original language or because it is something new that they want to be a part of. For others, it is the international language of music that fascinates them. “We want everyone to be part of the creative process and that is why we have the Q&A session after the performances. We want everyone to leave a little bit different than when they came in.”