Jacqueline Dobreva in conversation with Greek director Prodromos Tsinikoris on memory, belonging, and documentary theatre. His performance “96%” will be presented on 8th June at the Varna Art Gallery as part of the festival’s international selection.
Documentary theatre often deals with real-life stories, but the performance 96% addresses historical trauma. What was your personal motivation to engage with this topic?
I believe my motivation stemmed from two key factors. First, I was completely ignorant about the history of the Jewish community in Thessaloniki. This is the city where I studied after moving from Germany to Greece, and yet I had no idea about its Jewish past. In fact, about a century before I arrived, Thessaloniki had been a city with a predominantly Jewish population for five centuries. It was a shock for me to discover that such a vital part of the city’s identity had been entirely erased from public consciousness. I believe this lack of historical memory is deliberate. Over the years, various Greek governments – both at the national and local levels – have consciously maintained this silence. Thessaloniki is often portrayed solely as part of Alexander the Great’s legacy, as an always-Greek or Greek-speaking city, while its multicultural past remains in the shadows. Of course, there are people – mostly intellectuals – who know the truth, but this is not a widely shared narrative. So, my first motivation was deeply personal – I wanted to confront my own ignorance and broaden my historical awareness.
The second motive was more practical, but no less important. I was invited to create a performance specifically in Thessaloniki. Having worked primarily in Athens or abroad in recent years, I felt a strong urge to return to this city – and to do so with a topic that had previously been completely unfamiliar to me.
When did the research process begin, and how long did it take you to gather the documents, archives, and testimonies?
The research process began around six months before the premiere. At the time, I wasn’t living in Thessaloniki, so I knew I would only be able to carry out on-site research in the city later on – about three months before the performance. That’s why my first step was to find an academic consultant for the project. This was Tatiana Liani, who became something of a guiding light for me throughout the research. She pointed me toward important stories, testimonies and individuals I needed to meet, pointed me to relevant books and documentaries – even from a distance – and helped me navigate an extremely complex and emotionally charged topic.
The subject matter quite literally opened a door to an almost unknown world – at least for me, and probably for much of the audience as well. This is precisely why I see this performance as a reflection on memory – how we remember, how we learn from the past, and how easily the banality of evil can once again creep into our lives and paralyse us if we are not vigilant.
The first three months of the research took place in Athens, where I watched documentaries, read books, and studied archives. Afterwards, together with the composer and the set designer, we conducted field research in Thessaloniki – visiting memorials and significant locations, taking photographs, collecting material. This stage took around two months. Three weeks before the premiere, I suffered a lower back injury – a sudden and intense pain that literally left me immobilised. I took it as a sign: the research phase was over, and it was time to begin writing the script.
For the first time, I wrote a play from start to finish in chronological order. Thanks to the lengthy research, I already had a clear structure in mind. I still didn’t have a full cast, but I knew I would perform, and our musician would be involved as well. I invited my assistant – an actress from the National Theatre of Northern Greece – to join the project. We also found another actress of Jewish heritage. She is Greek, but her family descends from Sephardic Jews who came to Thessaloniki from Spain after the Inquisition, 500 years ago. Part of her family perished in the Holocaust, while others survived and still live there today. We felt that her personal story added an extra layer of depth to the performance, and we decided to include her.
What was the most challenging part—uncovering the facts or weaving them into a dramaturgical structure that amplifies reality without distorting it?
I think the hardest part was finding the right balance – on the one hand, avoiding a didactic tone, and on the other, not allowing it to become overly humorous. I believe in the power of humour in theatre – even when it’s dark, ironic, or sarcastic. But when the subject matter is this heavy, you feel an enormous sense of responsibility. You don’t want it to come across as too funny or frivolous. You might wonder how a performance like this can incorporate humor at all. It emerges in subtle, unexpected ways. But all the while, you feel the weight of an unhealed wound – the wound of a city that has completely erased the traces of its Jewish past. The stories, the names, the shops, the properties, the flats – everything has been wiped out as if it never existed. And when you create a performance like this, you strive to do the right thing – for the history, and for the people who lost their families in Auschwitz – even without being certain what “the right thing” means.
And again – you don’t want to sound preachy. You don’t want to stand on stage and say: “You, or your parents, or your grandparents did this or that.” It’s not about direct accusation. But the question that concerned me, and that I wanted to explore, was: how is it possible for people to remain unaware, or to turn a blind eye, while such horrific crimes are being committed around them? That was the dramaturgical and moral tension I wanted to work with.
Precisely because of this delicate balance between the personal and the historical, between humour and tragedy, I’d like to ask: how did you approach the question of responsibility – towards the memory of the victims, towards contemporary audiences, and towards the community in Thessaloniki itself?
In the performance, we decided to construct the narrative through three parallel threads, each addressing a different aspect of responsibility.
The first is the personal story of Alexandra – a woman in her thirties who speaks about her Sephardic Jewish family of musicians. Through her perspective, we explore the theme of the Jewish diaspora over the centuries and how antisemitism remains deeply rooted in Greek society – even before the war in Gaza. Her voice embodies living memory and cultural continuity.
The second thread is entrusted to my assistant, who acts as a kind of narrator or conduit for the historical information. She presents the facts about Thessaloniki – about what has been forgotten or deliberately silenced. She helps us reflect on what we know and what we’ve chosen not to know.
The third thread is autobiographical – my own story. On stage, we all become characters, even in documentary theatre. A single glance from the audience can turn you into something else. My character is shaped by the fact that I am the child of immigrants in Germany who returned to Thessaloniki to study theatre. It was then that I encountered – perhaps more strongly than others – the far-right rhetoric on television: nationalism, antisemitism and anti-migrant sentiment. I’m not saying I was part of those movements, but as someone with a migrant background, I was particularly sensitive to that discourse. Thessaloniki struck me as quite different from Athens in that respect. It has a complex, layered history – once Ottoman, then predominantly Jewish, it experienced Bulgarian occupation and then the Nazis. In the performance, there are even a few references to Bulgaria – some of them, surprisingly, with a humorous touch. But I won’t spoil anything further.
On stage, I function as a kind of guide – someone who has come to terms with his painful past and is exploring the wounds of the city. During the research, we uncovered what happened to the Jewish cemetery in Thessaloniki – once the largest outside Jerusalem – as well as to the homes, properties, and memory of its people. Many of these things ended up in private hands, or within state institutions.
Ironically, the National Theatre of Northern Greece – the very stage on which the performance is being presented – was founded during the German occupation, precisely at the time when the Jews were being deported to Auschwitz. That’s why the performance is titled 96% – of the 50,000 Jews who lived in Thessaloniki, 48,000 perished. Only 4% returned, and most of them left again. Today, the community numbers only around 1,000 people, whereas 110 years ago it was nearly 200,000. That’s how history works – we forget where we are, who lived here before us. This is why the performance weaves together personal stories, historical narrative, and onstage reflection. It’s a blend of documentary theatre and lecture-performance, without ever becoming a lecture.
Between 2015 and 2019, you were part of the artistic leadership of the Experimental Stage at the National Theatre of Greece in Athens. What were your main objectives during this time, and how did this experience shape your understanding of the role of documentary and socially engaged theatre in an institutional context?
Oh, that’s a very good question! Between 2015 and 2019, my friend and colleague Anestis Azas and I were the artistic directors of the Experimental Stage at the National Theatre of Greece in Athens. The invitation came unexpectedly from the then artistic director, who asked us if we’d be interested in taking over one of the stages. We agreed, despite the fact that both of us were actively working in Germany at that time.
I was born in Germany, and Anestis had studied there, so we were used to the nomadic life of freelance artists — one performance in Berlin, another in Munich, and a third in some other city. Intense, but exhausting. During that time, I felt the need to return to Greece — both professionally and personally. I missed the opportunity to make theatre in my native language, in my own context. This coincided with the height of the financial crisis in Greece. I don’t know if Bulgaria had the “honour” of being visited by the International Monetary Fund and undergoing memorandums for economic “rescue”, but that happened to us. One of the results – with the full cooperation of the Greek governments at the time – was the complete removal of state subsidies for the independent theatre scene. We’re talking about a very small amount — around 2 to 2.5 million euros annually for 20–30 theatres. A negligible sum. But that was also stopped. I think it was around 2010–2011. This meant that, across the entire country, you could no longer receive a subsidy from the Ministry of Culture.
Suddenly, the only secure way to work in theatre was through state institutions like the National Theatre, private organisations like the Onassis Foundation, or seasonal festivals like the Athens Festival. A small, but important aside: this context explains why the artistic community strongly reacted to the appointment of Jan Fabre as the artistic director of the Athens Festival. His plan was to include only Flemish artists in the first year, then 20% Greek content in the second year, and perhaps 40% in the third year. This was perceived as artistic colonialism. We had no support, no funding, and now even our festival was being taken away. So, when we took over the Experimental Stage, we told ourselves: not everyone in Greece wants or is able to make documentary theatre – and that’s completely normal. Our goal was not to impose our style, but to provide a platform for artists whose voices we considered important. They could be completely different from us and from each other.
Our approach was to give visibility and space to diverse and young creators, who were often overlooked by institutions. Throughout these four and a half years, I personally didn’t direct a single performance, something I now somewhat regret. But that was our role – not as creators, but as curators and supporters. The aim was to support a lively, diverse theatre scene in Greece at a time of deep crisis.
Do you have any expectations or concerns about how the Bulgarian audience will receive the performance 96%, especially considering that the memory and forgetting of the Holocaust in Bulgaria also has complex layers?
Yes, I think it will be interesting to see how the Bulgarian audience will receive the performance. But I’m not worried. I have faith in the theatre audience – they are generally open, curious, and willing to reflect or even reconsider their point of view. I’m not afraid that the reaction will be negative. In the performance, we do not speak ill of the Bulgarian people. If there is any criticism, it is mostly directed at the Christian population of Thessaloniki and its role during the Holocaust.
These two or three references to Bulgaria – and perhaps there are a few more – are by no means accusatory. They are more of a humorous nature and relate to an interesting historical fact: the creation of the National Theatre of Northern Greece. According to some sources, this happened out of fear that Bulgaria would collaborate with the Nazis and open a branch of the Sofia Opera and Theatre in Thessaloniki. So the Greek Christian leadership at the time said, “We don’t even have a national theatre! How can we have a Bulgarian theatre here?”. And so, the theatre was quickly founded. Ironically, it is this very theatre – the same one that commissioned this performance – that played a role in the redistribution of Jewish property after the war. I won’t reveal more – you’ll see it during the performance. It is presented more as a surprise. That’s why, again, I say – I trust the audience and believe that they will approach this with understanding and openness.
What are the next topics that interest you as a director? Are you going to continue to explore the traumas of collective memory?
I am often asked this question, and my answer always changes depending on the stage I am at. Together with my colleague Anestis Azas — whether we work together or separately — we have built a reputation for dealing with marginalised voices. We are often told, “You make theatre for minorities.” This is partly true, but it sounds as though we are an NGO. And we are not. We are artists who are interested in stories that show how the society we live in functions.
For example, we made Clean City — a performance created together with five immigrant women who work as cleaners in Greece. They were from Bulgaria, Moldova, the Philippines, South Africa, and Albania. This performance toured 20 countries — including North Macedonia, Bosnia, Turkey, Moldova, Portugal, and Spain — but it has never been shown in Bulgaria. This has always surprised me. We have also worked on themes such as migration, displacement, homelessness, and our latest work is with Roma communities. But for me, these projects are not about “checking off minorities” we haven’t shown yet. They are born from the contradictions of the country I live in — from social injustice and the suppressed voices that remain unheard. Perhaps this has to do with my background — as a child of migrants, raised in Germany. But more than anything, it is about the need to point out the blind spot of one’s own society.
At the moment, I am on a break — just touring with performances. But our next project with Anestis will be called Omonia — named after the famous square in Athens. The word omonia means harmony, agreement, but the square is one of the most stigmatised places in Greece. It is associated with immigration, drugs, poverty, and human trafficking. We want to explore what this place used to be, what it is now, and what it could be — both literally and symbolically. The premiere is scheduled at the National Theatre in Athens in two years, so we have time. I just hope we don’t end up writing the script three weeks before the premiere — although that has happened to us before.
The guest-performance is supported by Goethe-Institut Bulgaria. It is realized under the project “Theatre Bridges in Southeastern Europe”, funded by the program “Presentation to the Bulgarian audience of contemporary European productions from the CCI sector” through the National Culture Fund under the EU Recovery and Sustainability Facility.