Where do Athenians spend their time? Where do they unwind, meet friends, or enjoy their daily coffee? Where does work end and the city begin? In Meet the Athenians, we talk to the people of Athens about the places and moments that make them love the city they call home.
In this interview TO BHMA International edition talks with theater director Christos Sougaris.
1) How does your work interconnect with the city and its people?
Around a year after I moved to the capital, as I was looking out the car window at the city late one night, it must have been half past one or so, I felt that I had accepted Athens and Athens had accepted me. It had taken both of us quite some time, but it was worth the wait and the result was, and still is, utterly charming. It’s a wonderful feeling to be accepted, especially by a place that isn’t yours by birth.
Obviously, the city is connected to its inhabitants, too, and I to them through it. Athens is one thing with us, another without us. And, of course, we are other people entirely when we’re elsewhere.
On a purely professional level, I have been molded by Athens, and hence by the energies, souls and bodies of the people I have met and continue to meet in the city. I could even say it was they who made me into a theater professional. Because this city has one of the most productive theater scenes in the world, along with an audience that’s as cultured and experienced as it is large and diverse. It would be hard to find its match elsewhere. Just as it would be hard to overstress how crucial Yorgos Loukos was to bringing this about.
I belong to that category of people who consider myself a citizen of the world, and the earth the shared home of all humanity. That means my dreams, thoughts and desires have an Athenian hue to them, since this is the earth I tread, the air I breathe, the sky I look up at. I can’t know what it is that connects me with my fellow Athenians. But I do know that most of us are united by a suitcase, since we are all people who moved to this city in search of a better future, a better situation. And that makes us all kin. So, consciously or not, this city and its people exist not only in the way I work, but also in every step I take. In every thought I have in Athens and about Athens.
2) If you had only 24 hours in Athens, which three essential stops would be on your list?
If I was being a tourist, a walk through the historic center, definitely around and atop the Acropolis, then down to Sounion for the sunset.
But if it were my last 24 hours in Athens, I would definitely visit the beach in Palaio Faliro, Lycabettus hill, Mercouri Square in Ano Petralona, and cross the city by tram (Metro line 1).
3)What’s one thing you really love about Athens, and something else you wish was different?
What enthuses me about Athens is how the city makes room for us all. It embraces us, accepts us and does not judge us. Athens is generous and asks for nothing in return. What saddens me is how we treat the city as though it belongs to us, and our fellow citizens as though they owe us the very air they breathe. I know that sounds a little on the theoretical side, but believe me, it isn’t.
