Governance, Ghosts and Electricity

The bassline of the day remains unsaid: United in diversity. Artistic directors of UTE theatres came all the way from Athens, Bucharest, Luxembourg, Moscow, Sofia and Vienna to the Yugoslav Drama Theatre, Belgrade, on 17 September 2017. After a first conference in Milan last year, the focus of this exchange on different theatre structures was on Eastern and South Eastern Europe. For the first time, Boris Yukhananov from the Stanislavsky Electrotheatre in Moscow also attended. Meeting the newest member of the UTE.

Boris Yukhananov © Stanislavsky Electrotheatre

The dialogue about theatre structures, about its specific problems in Eastern and South Eastern Europe, took place in a location which, until not too long ago, was a European centre of the Movement of the non-aligned states. At this spatiotemporal crossroads, the collision of two governance models carried weight, which has unfolded in the past 28 years in the course of the eastward expansion of the European Union. Inês Nadais writes in this online magazine about the consequences of this development by focusing on the contributions on the diverging financial settings of theatres in Europe. We could also add Naomi Klein’s popular description of this clash in her book about the shock doctrine, and ask an additional question which many participants in the discussion in Serbia probably were wondering about:And to add a question that probably crossed most people’s minds at the conference: Who even knows the content of the Eastern partnership programmes? Who knows about the subjects of association agreements?

The free space of physical encounter

Once again it became evident how important mobility is for artistic exchange. The personal encounter of theatre makers on this and the other side of the stage does not halt whatever the “bodiless” exchange of ideas bottles up worldwide in the digital age in the form of a collection of emotions on social media or the comment columns in the online publications of small and large media houses. Governments have been soaring ever more frequently to curb these accumulations in a morally impeccable way through legislative packages against “hate speech” and “fake news”. Upon physically entering the conference hall, I have to think about Kadett Pirx who has served as the prime example of such conflicts of the body with the “virtual reality” in so many of the Polish writer Stanisław Lem’s literary parodies. A “reality” for which in 1963 Lem already coined the term “phantomisation” in his book Summa Technologiae. It’s fascinating that the ideas of science fiction writers are put into reality in the Silicon Valley—however, without taking the ethical concerns into account. Worked into the cybernetics and convinced of the game theory, these oft-celebrated innovators of the “inventors” of the digital era frequently remain far behind the revelations which Lem centrally formulated in Summa: “The ‘change’ from one personality to another is possible neither in a reversible nor in an irreversible process, because between such metamorphoses, there is a period of psychological destruction which is equal to the termination of the individual existence.”

Will legal packages be able to counter the protest against the preservation of the individual existence? — Admittedly, Lem’s reflections accompany me in the course of the conference like a stream of consciousness. But once awakened, they stay for the whole day. From the perspective of the theatre as a medium, there is an entirely different quality of the “social medium” in relation to Silicon Valley. The interpersonal sphere shaped by metamorphoses is a theatre maker’s daily routine. Metamorphoses happen all the time on this and the other side of the edge of the stage, always as a physical event, though. We could not imagine a theatre event without them. “Phantasm” alludes to the knowledge about the body as a place for ghosts. Through the passions of the soul they famously carve their expression. Love, hate and desire are their main “tools”. While game theory only knows desire, and forgets about love and hate, theatre needs a complete tool box in order to freely embark upon new endeavours.

The unrigged ghosts of the Stanislavsky method

When theatre makers meet to discuss the conditions of their work, the ghosts of the past are also in the ranks of the audience. The physical presence and with it the internalized ways of acting of culturally different geographical realms thus have limited space for individual expression. Their uninvited attendance can rather be compared to a bassline that all participants have tacitly gotten themselves into, and befittingly attempts to describe the motto of the European Union with the words United in diversity. The influence of the Stalinist Papal State had a standardising popularity with the Stanislavsky method in the theatre systems of the Eastern and South Eastern European countries. Very different from the intentions of one of the founders of the Moscow Art Theatre, Konstantin Stanislavski, around 1900, this acting method was about a rigid exegesis that was based on an appreciation of naturalism. Playwrights, such as Anton Chekhov or Maxim Gorki, had to pay for this in order for a “socialist realism” as a formal aesthetics programme for the education of the “new human” and for the development of a “new society” to be declared. The miles of shelving of publications of books and magazines in libraries are still evidence of the fruitful intellectual engagement during the time of the so-called East West Confrontation. But only there; in Eastern and South Eastern Europe, this oft-quoted “Moscow influence” has long disappeared. And not just there. Since the precipitated implosion of the Soviet Union, which resulted in the turn of eras of 1989/92, diverse structural changes have taken place in the former centre as well, for which the Stanislavsky Electrotheatre sustainably stands.

Cultural politics could have definitely taken a different direction for Moscow, the former European metropolis, now a megapolis, after the Russian director Anatoly Vasiliev lost his theatre, which the municipality gave up for new housing space, shortly after the millennium. The same thing could have happened to the Stanislavski Drama Theatre, the final place of activity of the Russian theatre reformer Konstantin Stanislavski, when it burned down in 2003 and 2005. As a housing space, or as a theatre with its glitzy logo of its founder’s name gutted of its actual artistic work, it would have been sufficient for the city’s marketing to organize a commercially successful company for guest performances, which surely would have worked well according to the principle “communism in the museum”. Instead, the former minister of culture called a competition, which Boris Yukhananov won in 2013. At this point, Yukhananov was 56. He has had a long artistic career, which started in 1974 as an actor at the Moscow State Puppet Theatre. It falls right into the 80s, after his studies at the Voronezh Art Institute. Those times were shaped by Glasnost and Perestroika. He took additional directing classes with Anatoly Efros and Anatoly Vasiliev, and assisted in their productions. His first experiments as a director includes his most famous “Capriccios”, based on court documents of a lawsuit against Joseph Brodsky. Yukhananov isn’t a stranger in the independent scene either, since he founded the first non-government funded theatre group “Teatr Teatr” in 1985.

Just how multi-faceted the structural changes were that took place in the Russian Federation after the turn of eras in 1989/1992, is described by Yukhananov in his contribution to the conference from the perspective of a theatre maker. In doing so, he focusses on the two European centres in Russia, St. Petersburg and Moscow. And we find out that they traditionally have always had their own form of financing. The ministry of cultural affairs first and foremost supports big theatre institutions, such as the Mariinsky Theatre or the Bolshoi Theatre. Under the tenure of the former secretary of culture, new theatre buildings were constructed. Since the year 2000, numerous cultural processes have taken off that are unstoppable. Theatre people felt the freedom, the diversity and the cosmopolitanism. The open borders facilitated interactions with Asian and European cultures, leading to an intermingling that helped the theatre cross borders. In doing so, the theatre was not burdened by commercial doings. Research and theatre laboratories also contributed to great changes in educational institutions. Many young and interesting directors have since entered the stage. There is now a wide range that no longer has anything to do with the stereotypes of the Stanislavsky method. You can’t take back these processes, which is why today there are two systems within the structure that compete with each other. One dates back to the tsar era; the other is a modern one, resulting in a diversity of problems that Russia’s theatre has to deal with today.

Magic in Moscow

Just how tightly the structural changes are tied to the processes of renewal of the actual theatre work is what the Stanislavsky Electrotheatre symptomatically stands for. Anybody who lent their ear to Yukhananov was chastened by his explanations later in the conference. A fundamental approach in the understanding of theatre work was revealed that already sees the sources for artistic production in the architecture of the building: “I completely reconstructed the theatre, from the bathrooms to the stage.”, Yukhananov said, “We have a very modern stage and modern lighting, which is why we’re called Electrotheatre. We invested around half a billion roubles into the reconstruction. The stage can be transformed in various ways. We also have an open-air stage that fits 400 people. But we’re not just a theatre. We actively work with many different events on a daily basis. We also offer lectures and concerts.”

These are pieces of a mosaic that fragmentarily assembled into a picture of contemporary theatre in Russia. Yukhananov explained that it’s a given that Russian society highly values theatre work. And both national as well as multi-national theatre is taking place. There’s an unabated interest in theatre, both with regards to civil society as well as the public authorities. This, however, also harbours its problems. One is the case Kirill Serebrennikov. Others have to do with theatre financing. Financing happens on the municipal level, on the level of the provinces, which Russia is divided into today, or on the level of the federation. A theatre’s own resources are also appreciated. No theatre, though, can exist solely based on the ticket sale. There are also sponsors and founding advisers who distribute money within a private structure on a yearly basis. This, however, has to do with preferences and interests, where theatre work has to compete with sport events. This aspect of gratuitousness has to be taken into account, especially with regards to creating a repertoire.

The pre-Stalinist foundation of the structure already hints to just how multi-facetted the new building that houses the Stanislavsky Electrotheatre embodies the diversity of the national and multi-national societies and declares their artistic ambitions, always with the stipulation of the artistic heritage. It opened as one of the first cinema palaces in 1915 in Moscow, the ARS Electrotheatre. Afterwards it was home to Konstantin Stanislavsky who established a studio for opera and drama there. His head forms part of the theatre’s logo today against the backdrop of rays. They seem like a tribute to Aristophanes, as if the one-hundred-year old ghosts of the past were laid to rest humourously in the theatre’s name and logo. The ensemble looks like a bell of a light bulb that has died out in Europe that may provoke flashes of genius. These inevitably are a credit to Lenin’s slogan that Socialism were Soviet power plus electrification of the whole country. The theatre strives to live up to the threefold use of the location also today—as a cinema, as an opera studio and a drama theatre. To deal with the objectives of the theatre requires sensitivity for magic. It must be a magical place, since they obviously succeeded in liberating the ambitions of the founding figures of the Moscow Art Theatre of more than one hundred years ago from the burdens of Stalinism. Ambitions which have been tied to the roots of theatre in Europe, which is demonstrated by the inclusion of opera: “Personally, I think that it’s really significant to work with contemporary composers”, Yukhananov concludes his contribution to the conference. “We are slowly developing a new face of our theatre. I’m sure you’re just making a sketch of the head right now. Then come the eyes. In theatre, we thus create a body. Through the reconstruction we also got a new body. For drama theatre, it’s now important to also be able to listen. So we have to add ears now.”

In the tradition of the Art Theatre

The Stanislavsky Electrotheatre opened its first season after its reconstruction period with a production of a subject matter whose control text Stanislavsky put on stage in the Moscow Art Theatre in 1908: The Blue Bird by the Belgian playwright Maurice Maeterlinck. Yukhananov directed this text as a theatrical journey of three days that also includes a Boeing 777, which may remind you of the plane that crashed in Ukraine. And just as Yukhananov said during the conference: “We are open for dialogue, and we want to cooperate.”—thus visiting theatre makers have a long-standing tradition with the Art Theatre. Stanislavsky once invited Edward Gordon Craig to rehearse Hamlet with the company. Under Yukhananov’s tenure, Heiner Goebbels realised Max Black, Theodoros Terzopoulos developed The Bacchae by Euripides, and Romeo Castellucci rehearsed his production of Human Use of Human Beings together with the Electrotheatre’s company. The online trailer of the first season, which started in 2016, sets out with humour and ends humorously: Through the masks of the expectation to see Russia’s goats in women and bears in men a multi-naturalism likely presents itself that is so different from the known naturalisms of the 20^th century that new research will surely be introduced into academic considerations as well. The theatre delivers early impulses. The dramatic and the postdramatic theatre, the performative and that which has been theatre since antiquity, which is opera, seem to have newly assembled into a concept of acoustic ecology under the magical direction of Boris Yukhananov. But in order to find out we should follow the invitation made in the online trailer: “Visit us—Tverskaya Street 23”.

Published on 28 December 2017 (Article originally written in German)

Unsurtitled Theatricality

Unsurtitled Theatricality—Three plays at the Volkstheater

Watching performances in a congtext that is the opposite on an international festival situation is quite an interesting experience. A group of non-German speaking journalists affiliated with the Union des Théâtres de l’Europe had an opportunity to just do that in the autumn of 2017, as guests at the Volkstheater in Vienna. We saw three different plays on three consecutive evenings, all without surtitles. In this sense, the present article can be placed in a dialogue with Sergio lo Gatto’s article “Surtitled Theatricality: What language do artists export?” written in connection with an international festival, exploring how much the theatricality of a performance is based (only) on the text and what this means for a foreign audience.

“Wien ohne Wiener”, directed by Nikolaus Habjan at the Volkstheater Wien © Lupi Spuma

Perhaps there could not have been a better time to test Segio’s theory than this: we had an opportunity to watch productions that were not necessarily intended for festivals, in their local setting, without surtitles and with minimal German knowledge. This is by no means an unusual situation, although writing about it is. To be honest, the opportunity to let go of the text often fills me with relief. As it is difficult to resist surtitles, even when one fights to succumb to the temptation: at least I, myself, am so verbally inclined that a scene rarely glues my gaze to the stage, I keep looking up, meaning I definitely miss a great deal of what is happening.

There is another reason why I feel that the situation at hand is the polar opposite of international festivals: I almost feel like a voyeur, peeping at the Viennese in their home, as they watch theatre made just for them. Even from the three plays, even without understanding the text, one sees what there is a market for, and what the artistic director, Anna Badora and the creative circle are intrigued by. One thing is for sure, the Viennese enjoy explorations (seeped in historical identity) about what it means to be Viennese: two of the three performances, Wien ohne Wiener and Alles waltzer, alles brennt dealt with specifically this question. The third production was constructed from two consecutive performances of Iphigenia in Aulis and Stephano Massini’s Occident Express about the post-migration society. This indicates, what may be evident to us, but not to all segments of the theatrical structure: that the Volkstheater is strongly focused on the present. How profoundly and in what depth the issues presented in the play are dealt with is another question. In the absence of text, I can only guess at how thought-provoking, provocative, playful or even didactic these productions were.

However, I am able to give a much more definite opinion on which of the performances had the strongest impact in terms of theatrical language: Nikolaus Habjan’s Wien ohne Wiener, even though this play is the least bit international. The production is a kind of homage to the deceased Georg Keisler, the Austrian cabaret artist who strongly relied on Viennese (Jewish) culture in his songs. On the surface, the context is completely foreign, but it seems contextual knowledge is not necessary for one to feel that the performance is about them. In other words, one does not have to be Viennese to feel Viennese (as someone from Budapest).

Naturally, among other things, it is the puppets in Wien ohne Wiener that make the play seem new, fresh and full of life. With the absence of a lingua franca, the audience becomes immersed in the visual stimuli. Habjan’s puppets offer a real treat: With their bulging eyes and wrinkled faces these figures embody the ridiculousness and petty bourgeois of people who step on our toes on the tram (And those polyester blouses and knitted waistcoats!). And it is as if death had left its fingerprints on all of the faces… The way the puppets move on stage is also exciting. They are actually life-sized, but their limbs are replaced by the limbs of the puppeteers, who fill the empty shirts, blouses, that are the torsos of the puppets with their own hands and bodies. Interestingly, this makes the puppets seem alive; and they seem to be “acting” even when they lay lifeless on the edge of the stage. Adding further colour to the production is that the puppets do not only have separate puppeteers but also separate voices: as one actor moves the puppet the other “dubs” its words. The production exploits the playfulness of this method, each element i.e. the puppets, the puppeteers and voice-over actors, have their own lives and communicate with one another. Funny gags include the “voice” knocking the puppet over the head, the broad-hipped Alpine girl built out of two actresses, and Claudia Sabitzer dressed as a pigeon looking like a puppet herself. And we have not even mentioned the music of the play! It seems that Wien ohne Wiener has such a great impact because it creates its own, new world out of existing texts (none of which I had been familiar with). The whole thing is very grotesque, incredibly funny and deadly.

On the second night, we saw Euripides’ Iphigenia in Aulis and Stefano Massini’s Occident Express. Anna Badora placed the two plays side by side. It is an unusual, but not unique method, a bit like a curator organising an exhibition of two independent pieces, maybe even from different eras, in a way that the pieces start to interact with one another. Naturally it is the task of the audience to find the link, the reflections of each piece with the other. We have seen examples of this in Hungarian theatre: Gábor Máté used this method at the József Katona Theatre, when he placed a genre-painting like play about gypsies set in the first half of the last century in contrast with a contemporary play about a series of ethnically motivated murders set in the early 2000s in Hungary. This experiment was followed by Csaba Polgár at the Örkény Theatre. He embedded a series of scenes also about murder into the well-known story of seven samurais from Kurosawa’s film. The audience could actually vote to decide the fate of the samurais in the last third of the performance. I remember how my thoughts jumped from one story to the next, how one interpreted the other without the solution being completely obvious.

The memories of these two plays danced around in my head as I was watching Anna Badora’s production; the lack of surtitles actually created a larger space to make these sorts of associations. Nevertheless, my lack of familiarity with the second play made this process more difficult as I did not understand the language. In essence, this method relies on each actor playing multiple roles. As they reappear in the second part of the production, their roles reflect upon each other. As I only had a vague understanding of Massini’s play, I found following this aspect of the production difficult. Rather, I watched the plays as two separate entities (or at least two separate parts of the performance). As a result, and also due to the lack of surtitles, the quality of the acting stood out even more. The difference in the style of the two plays was acutely apparent: the acting in Occidental Express seemed much more natural, reflective and multi-layered. Of course, the premise was also different: the actors narrated some of the play themselves and kept a distance from the story. This was obvious to me even without familiarity with the text, primarily thanks to the quality of acting. The other signs, the recurring motifs, the spilling of the paint, the proliferation of victims worked nicely, but it is again difficult for me to decipher to what degree Massini’s text takes over the story of the refugees, or speaks for them—an angle mentioned at a conference the day before by an artist of Syrian descent.

The production I saw on my third night was Alles Waltzer, alles brennt, which was quite likable even with the language barrier. However, it was during this production that I missed surtitles the most. To be more precise, this performance peaked my interest in the text (while Massini’s play probably was more predictable), it awoke a thirst for knowledge in me (even in an educational sense), and I kept wondering which aspect of the happenings the play dealt with. Irony and humour were quite clearly present, gags thundered through the stage and the story with dizzying speed. And I would like to take this opportunity to say that the solo of singer Eva Jantschitsch was absolutely magnificent.

Well that’s the way it is: if something interesting happens on stage, we notice it even without surtitles.

Published on 20 December 2017 (Article originally written in Hungarian)

30 days with Kirill Serebrennikov

On 17 October 2017, the Basmanny Court of Moscow extended the house arrest for Kirill Serebrennikov, accusing him of embezzling about 70 million rubles from the budget for the development and promotion of contemporary art. The director asked the court to release him at least for the final filming of the movie “Summer” and the completion of the ballet “Nureyev” at the Bolshoi Theater, but he was denied.

Artistic director of the Gogol Center Kirill Serebrennikov was among the nominees of the Russian national theatre prize Golden Mask. Serebrennikov was nominated for the award for staging the opera “Chaadsky” in “Helikon-Opera” and the play “Akhmatova. Poem without a hero” in the Gogol Center. Also the director is nominated in the category costume designer for the opera “Chaadsky“.

One of the most colorful of Serebrennikov’s productions was, as the tag-line informed, about “all shades of black”. Not that Serebrennikov has ever produced anything dull, be it cinema, theatre, TV, or lectures, nor is he producing anything dull at the moment, or will he ever. Men clad in black, men wearing masks, men who have no faces often appeared as characters in his works. Unfortunately, quite recently the director had a chance to make personal acquaintance with these characters of his when they were escorting him into the glass-walled dock in the courtroom. Serebrennikov is nothing like an Ivory Tower dweller, his artistic genius is blessed with social awareness, sensitive to all that is socially relevant, partial to the people for whom “the time is out of joint”. He once was (and has staged the play) “Close to Zero”, and earned some hostile criticism even from those who never saw the show. Dazzled, some by the authorities presumably at play, some by hatred to these very authorities, but equally blind to the real thing, too many failed to see the portents of the final throes to come in that very Shakespearian production, which for the “to be or not to be” dilemma showcases daily routine and jettisoning everything that makes a human human. And no question marks, period. The book ends with the statement: “Anything can be mended,” but the theatre version leaves no room for hope. Yet the optimistically minded director (he has so little time, such a lot of work) neglected his own prophesy, or maybe believed that darkness, however dense and absolute it might be, is still to be won even by the tiniest of lights. Which is quite true. But the costs? The director is in a mousetrap. And now the device is not a Shakespearian one. Today, when the rtist is brought to the trial of public scrutiny, a lot is said about money, people make estimates, they recon, count, calculate. Figures incite malicious rejoicing at another’s misfortune, bear hatred, tempt to shout “tally-ho!”, and pass the verdict “serves him right.” Our people love sums that have many noughts: it lends the feeling of belonging. Meanwhile, leaving playing with numeral and discussing that which happened in the courtroom to the social networks, we suggest that theatre goers and movie lovers (especially those who have never seen any of Kirill Serebrennikov’s productions), refrain from passing judgment on him, but make busy forming an opinion about him, about his artistic accomplishments. So be it 30 days of the month of September with his films, his theatre productions, TV programmes, lectures and interviews – 30 days in his company, 30 days in his support. The following selection contains links and the coming events that are must-sees, and are worth reviewing.

#freeserebrennikov #freekirill

1. “The Student”. Film from 2016. Based on Marius von Mayenburg’s play “Märtyrer”, screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the François Chalais Prize. Chronologically the director’s last completed film that garnered a prize at Cannes, and, as it is always the case with Serebrennikov, earned an upheaval of an audiences’ response. An armour piercing projectile sort of a movie about obscurantism that’s hard to die.

2. “The Forest”. Theatre production of the play by Alexander Ostrovsky produced by A.P. Chekhov Moscow Art Theatre. Great theatrical success. The iconic 19^th century Russian play is transported to “the epoch of stagnation” of the 1970s, but curiously is ranked with present-day allusions.

3. "Infidelity”. Film. A man and a woman learn that their respective spouses are lovers. Tackles the theme of infidelity as an overwhelming element of a thriller.

4. “Outside the System” an event in commemoration of K.S. Stanislavsky at A.P. Chekhov Moscow Art Theatre. An anniversary (150^th birthday) celebration event about Stanislavsky by means of quoting the great master’s statements, letters, wires, notes, as well as those of his students and colleagues, both devotees and apostates

5. “Zoyka’s Apartment”. Theatre production by Mikhail Bulgakov (A.P. Chekhov Moscow Art Theatre) // TV show “Cultural exchange” with Kirill Sereberennikov as a guest. Daring and even nowadays topical musical show made after Bulgakov’s 1926 play. Serious talk about time, about projects, and about public mood.

6. “The Murderer’s Diary”. TV show from 2002. The discovery of the 1919 diary of a student, Nickolay Voinov, who confesses in it to have murdered five people, becomes the clue to some horrible crimes of our day. A riveting series with some wonderful actor performances.

7. “The Golovliev Family”. Theatre production based on the 1876 novel by Saltykov-Shchedrin. Features possibly the most hideous character ever embodied by Evgeny Mironov. An absorbing story of spiritual devastation.

8. “Playing the Victim”. Film. A dark comedy based on the Presnyakov brothers’s play of the same title that tells the story of a good-for-nothing 30-year-old man whose job is to act the victim when the police is reconstructing a murder in the course of the inquest, and the job is telling on him…

9. “Some Explicit Polaroids”. Theatre production by Mark Ravenhill (the Moscow Pushkin Drama Theatre). A dramatic tale about a rebel, a hippy, a striptease dancer, a gay man dying of AIDS, about his sexual slave, and about love.

10. “Dark Avenues” based on the 1946 book of short stories by Ivan Bunin, a dramatic performance shot for TV broadcasting (a literary soiree). Invited to stage it by Alla Demidova personally. An austere and delicate theatrical piece based on Bunin’s stories.

11. “Yuri’s Day”. Film from 2008. An opera singer, played by Kseniya Rappoport, before leaving the homeland to reside permanently abroad, goes for a short visit to an obscure, out-of–the-way place to say her last goodbyes to the native country. And her son gets lost there. She loses her voice, and all her old worldviews. Yet she is also granted with some findings.

12. “The Philistines”. Theatre production from 1902 by Maxim Gorky (A.P. Chekhov Moscow Art Theatre). This iconic Russian play that premiered in 1902, in the hands of Serebrennikov undergone a complete change of meaning, yet staying absolutely true to the text of the original play. Which is a dramatic piece about a family crisis. A brilliant Andrey Myagkov.

13. “Naked Pioneer Girl”. Theatre production by Mikhail Kononov (the Sovremennik theatre). A musical-and-battle miracle-play. A study on the role of the woman in war examined in other than a full-dress fashion. Chulpan Khamatova in the title role.

14. “Short Circuit” (novella “A Kiss of a Shrimp”). Film. A collection of five short films made by the leading young cinema directors. Five contemporary tales dealing with the theme which is as old as the world itself. Love. A dramatic piece, a comedy, a farce – genre-wise it’s comprehensive.

15. Rostov-Papa. TV show from 2001. A vertical serial, each episode of which is loosely based on a classical story: “Carmen”, “Orpheus and Eurydice”, “Don Quixote”, “Cyrano de Bregerac”, “Hamlet”…

16. “Plasticine”. Theatre production. Some thundering and fulminating based on Vasiliy Sigarev’s play about a 14-year old boy who has been abused, and is being abused daily.

17. “Ragin”. Film. A version of Anton Chekhov’s short story “Ward No.6”, with Alexei Guskov playing doctor Ragin.

18. Fragments of the theatre production “Scumbags” (Gogol Center) and recording of the director meeting his audience before the performance. Theatre version of Zakhar Prilepin’s prose, complete with its signet revolutionary ardor, drive, and hopelessness. It was awarded with the “Gold Mask”.

19. “Antony and Cleopatra”. Theatre production (the Sovremennik theatre). A spectacular confrontation of the male and the female, the East and the West, the old and the new forms.

20. Fragments of the show "The Metamorphoses" (Gogol Center). A theatrical biopic, in which even silence resounds Classical myths as contemporized and placed in the multimedia environment.

21. “One Hundred Minutes of Poetry”, a poetry reading event. Poetry and music performed at the Polytechnic Museum.

22. Fragments of the theatre production “The Hunting of the Snark”. A tragic-comical musical fairy gala loosely based on Lewis Carroll’s nonsense poem.

23. “Substituting Audio Mixing for Dogs”. Film. A rarity – the director’s cinematographic debut, based on La Leçon («The Lesson », 1951) by Eugène Ionesco.

24. A cycle of TV programmes “Another Kind of Cinema with Kirill Serebrennikov”. Talks on the characters of the iconic films of the world cinema, no less fascinating than the films themselves.

25. “Requiem”, a symphonic performance (A.P. Chekhov Moscow Art Theatre). Presented to celebrate the 65^th anniversary of the end of the World War II, this mystery play like production became a tribute to commemorate all those killed in the wars that had tormented Europe since the 17^th century and up to September 1945. It contains instrumental music, vocal, canon Latin texts, and documents of the 1930s and 40s.

26. Open lecture by Kirill Serebrennikov

27. Fragments of the theatre production “Terrorism”.

28. Big interview with Kirill Serebrennikov

29. Documentary “Der Fall Serebrennikov”.

30. Kirill Serebrennikov in court

Published on 30 November 2017 (Article originally written in Russian)

Theatre Worlds Clashing at the UTE Conference of Theatre Structures in Belgrade

Editor’s Note:

This is a follow-up on an article by our Portuguese journalist that also covered the UTE Conference on Theatre Structures in Belgrade. This article offers our Greek’s journalist’s perspective

Theatre Worlds Clashing at the UTE Conference of Theatre Structures in Belgrade

“Can we all move to Austria?” This rhetorical question posed by Alexandru Darie, the artistic director of the Bulandra theatre in Bucharest, humorously interrupted a series of speeches full of numbers and information regarding the theatrical structures of seven different countries in Europe. It was a natural and spontaneous reaction, since so many different systems clashed in this conference in order to understand and detect each other’s similarities and differences.

Conference on Theatre Structures at the Yugoslav Drama Theatre in Belgrade, Serbia

Despairingly similar or chaotically different? The difficulties to be dealt with in the theatre by countries such as Bulgaria and Austria or Russia and Luxembourg, may be at the back of our mind, however, when they are put on the same table, they can be impressively revealing.

We had this chance on Sunday, 17 September 2017, thanks to the Union des Théâtres de l’Europe, which unites twenty different—not only—European theatres, from east to west, from north to south. Artistic directors from seven theatre members of the UTE, from Greece, Romania, Austria, Luxembourg, Serbia, Russia and Bulgaria, had fifteen minutes each to enlighten us regarding the way theatre works in their respective countries.

The place where this second meeting took place—the first one having taken place in May 2016 in Milan—was the welcoming though blocked off Yugoslav Drama Theatre (the Belgrade Pride Parade took place at the same time).

“It is quite impossible not to fund theatres in Austria. Our politicians realise how important it is”, said Anna Badora of the Vienna Volkstheater and Andrea Ruis of the Arts & Culture Division of the Federal Chancellery of Austria, describing a system—to be further analysed in conflict-zones.reviews soon—that sounded almost ideal.

Contrary to that, “More freedom in decision-making” is what is needed in Romanian theatre, says Alexandru Darie. “We need to ask permission for everything from the city of Bucharest which we are part of. Even something as small as hiring a person”. He, too, mentioned a terrible law about private funding, according to which 4% can be given to sport and only 2% to art, depending on the choice of politics. He also said that there’s “unfair competition” between public and private theatres. “We can’t pay the actors the same salaries since we are obliged to pay all taxes and rights. Private theatres never do that”, he said

Our biggest problem is that “we make it”, emphasized Stathis Livathinos, the artistic director of the National Theatre of Greece explaining that funding has dropped from 12 to six million per year. “Since you can get by on that amount, next time we’ll give you even less; this is how politicians think”. Some sponsors give financial aid. “They often complain because they want their name to be placed next to the brand name of the National Theatre. But this must not happen”, he said.

Margarita Mladenova of the Sfumato Theatre in Sofia has the same concern. “Over the past eight years we have been under the dictate of the market. Every theatre needs to sell more and more tickets in order to survive. This is why they hire so-called bear actors—famous TV stars”. In Bulgaria, there are fifty-five national theatres, which is quite impressive. “This is a good policy. What is not good is that they all share the same structure, and this does not allow us to be creative. We need more flexibility”, she noted.

Some new conditions, according to Tamara Vukovic Manojlovic from Serbia, are the free market laws which are being imposed on the theatre, the bureaucracy, as well as the constant budget cuts and the change in the audience’s behaviour. The Yugoslav Drama Theatre is funded by the city of Belgrade by 40–80%, and 20% of its budget comes from tickets.

The Theatre in Luxembourg deals with completely different issues, says its artistic director and founder, Frank Hoffman. “One hundred and sixty nationalities are involved in our productions. We certainly are an international theatre!” he proudly stated. “Nevertheless, the issues that arise have to do with identity, and are of an existential nature. Who am I? What’s my mother tongue?”

Boris Yukhananov from the Stanislavky Elektrotheatre in Moscow expressed concerns about the current situation in Russia. “All the changes that have occurred in our country over the past fifty years have also affected the theatre and its future is uncertain”, he said, while referring to the recent scandal of the great Russian director Kirill Serebrennikov’s (Gogol Theatre, Moscow) persecution.

The first and biggest sponsor of 700 theatres in the country is the Ministry of Culture, which funds big theatres, such as the Bolshoi or the Mariinsky, on a yearly basis. The funds go up to 12 billion rubles, which still cannot cover the cost of their existence. He also mentioned the existence of “benefactors” and not just sponsors in the theatre, which still remains non- commercial in Russia.

“There’s definitely more than one conclusion,” the president of the Union des Théâtres de l’Europe, Michal Dočekal from Prague, said, summing up the conference. He pointed out that theatre is undoubtedly part of the European cultural heritage, and that is exactly why the issues discussed here were of far more than of mere academic or practical interest.

Published on 23 October 2017 (Article originally written in Greek)

The Rich and the Poor: Coming Together and Drifting Apart in the European Theatrical Landscape

Money (or the lack of it) was a recurring issue during the second conference on theatre structures promoted by the Union des Théâtres de l’Europe. Between the State and the market, financial gymnastics tends to be the rule — but there are some exceptions.

As the peak of the economic and financial crisis that paralyzed Europe during the last decade — to a greater or lesser extent, according to the strength and the resilience of national budgets — seems finally overcome (or so they say…), money is still the elephant in the room when it comes to analyzing the differing (and often conflicting) paradigms that rule the arts, and theatre in particular, in the European context. Indeed that’s how it felt a year ago in Milan, when the Union des Théâtres de l’Europe (UTE) held the first of its conferences on theatre structures, in an event that finally materialized not only the thousands of kilometers but also the thousands of euros that keep the Teatro Nacional de São João, in Porto, apart from co-members such as the Schauspiel Stuttgart or the Piccolo Teatro de Milano (eventually leaving some room for debate on the uncomfortable transit between theatre and politics in turbulent contexts such as Tunisia or Israel). And again, that’s how it felt a week ago in Belgrade, where the impact of the still ongoing shift from Eastern Europe’s hyper-regulated and hyper-centralized systems to a market economy was in the spotlight, framing the more or less converging experiences of Bulgaria’s Sfumato, Romania’s Teatrul Bulandra, Serbia’s Yugoslav Drama Theatre (JDP), Greece’s National Theatre of Greece in Athens, and Russia’s Stanislavsky Electrotheatre.

The price of adjusting to a new environment which is mostly defined by the state’s retreat and the scarcity of available funds is a common feature to most of the theatres working beyond the former Iron Curtain, despite regional differences. “We all face similar problems, but in the Serbian case they’re aggravated by the fact that the system itself is going through changes. Yes, we do need more funds—but we also need a new model”, said Tamara Vučković Manojlović, JDP’s general manager, right at the opening of the conference. “The laws that have recently been approved do not acknowledge the cultural sector’s specific characteristics, and public funds decrease as the idea that theatre must adapt to the principles of a market economy makes its way”, she added. Today, YDT’s ticket sales revenues make up for 18–22% of its total budget and the emphasis on diversifying the theatre’s sources of income has led to the frequent rental of its rooms, a side-activity which already represents a “substantial” cash flow.

Also in Bulgaria, where the State’s investment in the cultural sector remains at 0.5% of the country’s GDP, the funding mechanisms behind its 35 public theatres also began fluctuating according to the laws of the market. “Starting eight years ago, the budget of each and every theatre depends on the ticket sales—we’re now under the market’s Diktat”, Sfumato’s artistic director Margarita Mladenova argued. This new funding system, she explained, pushes theatres towards a serial production approach, eventually compromising long, experimental artistic processes, such as the ones that historically defined the Sfumato: “We’re strongly advised to rehearse less and sell more. Breeding new actors, new poetics and new aesthetics is currently marginalized.” Meanwhile, whole theatrical seasons gravitating around famous, crowd-pleasing TV stars abound, sacrificing the institutions’ long-established artistic identities: “To make sure they make enough money, directors cast ‘dancing bears’ [A/N popular TV actors] in the leading roles, and the remaining actors are forced to gravitate around them so they can be paid. It’s atrocious.”, Mladenova stated, advocating for a new funding system that may replace the “emphasis on consumerism” by highlighting artistic integrity and further regulating the local administrations’ financial contribution to Bulgaria’s theatrical landscape (the current set of rules favours rather arbitrary funding policies).

In Romania, where municipal budgets are a key-element to the survival of the country’s public theatre network (only national theatres are directly State-financed, and less than 0.8% of the GDP is invested in the cultural sector); the paradigm is changing, too. Bucharest is definitely a world apart—three million people, half of the country’s GDP, a billion-euro municipal budget, 28 cultural institutions, 14 city-funded theatres—, but outside the capital city survival is especially hard, Teatrul Bulandra’s Alexandru Darie pointed out. Both the market and the rules defining how to access the municipal funds (about 70–80% of the total budget, in Bulandra’s case) pave the way for an industrial, mass-production model: new productions tend to multiply (seven to ten per year being the current average) as the shows’ careers are downsized (a maximum of 10 to 15 sessions per show).

Meanwhile, on yet another front, the “extraordinary boom” of private theatres which proliferate in alternative venues is reshaping Romania’s theatrical landscape—“for better and for worse”, according to Alexandru Darie. “Private theaters are more likely to forgo legislation or evade their fiscal responsibilities and have lighter structures that tend to be more flexible and free from administrative constraints. So, it’s an unfair competition for public theatres, which only this year were again granted permission to hire new actors and technicians [in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis, this was strictly ruled out]. An actor we recently hired for a new production of Ivanov told us that while we were paying him about 100 euros a night for burning himself out and weighing two kilos less after each performance, a private theatre would pay him twice as much just to sit in a chair and tell jokes”, Bulandra’s artistic director reported. Then again, it’s also true, he admitted, that the freedom of action of the private arena has allowed for the appearance of “emerging talents (actors, directors, etc.) that are now finally permeating the public theatres”, eventually updating their repertoires and their theatrical languages”.

“At the moment, it is a war, but I hope that in the end the clash between these two worlds will benefit the public theatres”, Alexandru Darie summed up, endorsing a new framework in which these institutions “heavily controlled by the State and local administrations” (“We must demand permission for everything!”) can have higher flexibility and autonomy levels.

Just like in Bulgaria, a structural change also seems inevitable in Romania: “Maybe we must follow the examples set by Italy or Germany and redefine the status of our theatres, a move some of my colleagues are afraid of because they suspect change will mean less funding.” Anyway, the current legal framework has also proven insufficient as far as benefactors’ and sponsors’ incentives are concerned: “The system favours investing in festivals, which is where all the rich and nicely dressed people show up; nobody will care for the theatres’ daily activities unless the law is reformed.”

Transitioning

Meanwhile, in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, where State control assumes spookier nuances (as it has recently been underlined by the painful Kyril Serebrennikov’s case), the systemic shock caused by the collapse of the USSR seems far from digested. Part of the “enormous structure” set up by the communist regime in every corner of the country is still on—about 700 theatres are supported either by the State or the local administrations—, but in many cases (including the historical ballet and opera theatres of Moscow and Saint Petersburg, the Bolshoi and the Mariinsky) their dotation doesn’t even cover these institutions’ heavy operating costs (needless to say, fixed ensembles tend to be a sacred rule). In fact, and given the lack of resources, theatres are tangled in complex financial gymnastics, juxtaposing highly volatile public and private funds, said Boris Yukhananov, Stanislavsky Electrotheatre’s artistic director. “Government is very much for the establishment of benefactor councils for every theatre, and that’s how many companies survive. As for the municipal funds, they too tend to fluctuate according to the mayor’s preferences… But Voronezh is a fine example—and there are others—of the renaissance of a contemporary culture”, he mentioned. In this “gradual transitioning context from centralization to decentralization”, theatre is still overwhelmingly non-commercial: “Some commercial theatres try to be self-sufficient, but normally they don’t succeed.”

The Stanislavsky Electrotheatre is one of those examples of cross-pollination between public and private dotation. Established more than a century ago, in 1915, it was one of the first grand cinemas in Moscow before eventually becoming Konstantin Stanislavsky’s studio; since 2013 it’s Boris Yukhananov’s new home, a multidisciplinary venture where theatre, opera and music converge. “In early 2013, the theatre was in a very delicate situation and the city of Moscow ran a public competition for the post of artistic director; I applied and got appointed. In theory, the city would provide all the funding, but I would never choose that kind of slavery to the authorities, if only for the fact that our artistic visions don’t match. Presently, the city feeds our budget with one million euros while the remaining five or six million euros come from benefactors”, the director went into detail. Total investment in the reconstruction of the theatre is in the vicinity of one billion rubles, he added. “If we manage to prove we double as an opera theatre, we may double the current dotation”, Boris Yukhananov said, highlighting “the important work” that the Stanislavsky Electrotheatre has developed with contemporary composers.

The eye of the crisis

Although in the Eastern countries the cumulative effect of the ongoing paradigm shift and the economic crisis has aggravated the inevitable growing pains, no European country has been more deeply affected by the financial decay than Greece. Stathis Livanthinos, National Theatre of Greece’s artistic director, came to Belgrade to tell us about survival in the eye of the crisis, with less than half of the good old days’ budget to manage (the institution’s dotation declined from 12 to six million euros), and no chance of easing the burden of its expensive staff structure (250 workers and a permanent ensemble of one hundred actors), whose salaries currently consume all the available funds—ticket sales are the only source of funding for theatre production itself. “It’s a feature of the National Theatre of Greece Basic Law, which has been approved in the 90s. I tried to change that rule, because, as you can imagine, it’s extremely difficult to survive given these conditions, but the idea is that in times of crisis there should be at least a place where Greek actors can work and get paid”, he explained.

The budget’s drastic downsizing threatens the National Theatre of Greece’s main mission, since its ability to reach beyond the city of Athens and to penetrate the whole country is now weakened: “The National Theatre of Greece is in danger of becoming just the National Theatre of Athens; the current financial situation makes it very hard to be present on a national level.” Besides, the crisis has also undermined the State’s ability to support theatrical activity: “The Ministry of Culture used to subsidize theatres across the country. It’s over now. Only the National Theatre of Greece and the National Theatre of Northern Greece [A/N also a member of the UTE] are State-financed. In fact, the percentage of the national budget that is available for culture is so low that I’m ashamed to quantify it.”

Relying on ticket revenues to finance new productions, and at the same time seriously constrained by the audience’s declining purchasing power (which eventually forced the institution to implement a new reduced price policy, so the common Greek could still afford going to the theatre), the National Theatre of Greece can no longer guarantee its quality standards. And that’s also due to the fact that the legal framework does not suit the attraction of new, alternative sources of income: “A few years ago I started looking for sponsors and benefactors, but we need more adequate legislation. Some companies did give us money because they like what we do, but all that we can give them back is some publicity in our programmes… and so the National Theatre of Greece risks seeing its name being swallowed up by private companies and losing its public character”, Stathis Livanthinos argued.

Not everything is tragic in the country where tragedy was invented, though: the crisis years were also, paradoxically, years of theatrical abundance, with an average of a thousand new shows per year just to mention Athens (even if in many cases the artists did not get paid) and finally, “for the first time in too many years”, the Ministry of Culture could hand out about 100 million euros to independent theatre companies.

Over the rainbow

But there is a parallel universe in this story—and it belongs in Europe, too. A parallel universe where talking about theatre doesn’t necessarily mean “talking about money” (“which, besides being unpleasant, is incorrect”, as Stathis Livanthinos pointed out). Luxembourg, for instance, whose young national theatre was established in 1996 after the overwhelming success of the European Capital of Culture of the preceding year. Frank Hoffmann, director (and founder!) of Théâtre National du Luxembourg, did not come to Belgrade to speak about funding but to discuss issues of mission and identity in a small country of 500 thousand inhabitants where almost half of the population is of foreign origin and speaks another language.

Vienna’s Volkstheater is also a world apart—as is the entire theatrical landscape of Austria, a topic that another article of this online magazine will further develop. So apart from that, somewhere over the rainbow, many million euros away, as Theatre and Dance Unit Chief at the Arts and Culture Department of the Federal Chancellery, Andrea Ruis, and Volkstheater’s artistic director, Anna Badora, described “the best system in the world” (Badora’s words) the remaining speakers finally found the good news they were so desperate to bring back home.

Published on 29 September 2017 (Article originally written in Portuguese)

Talking theatre and changing socio-political landscapes with Gorčin Stojanović

Sundays are meant to be calm and relaxing. Yet, the third Sunday of September wasn’t that at all in the capital of Serbia, Belgrade. Instead it was a day, charged with anxiety, hope, fear, politics, and visions for the future. The day concluded with the FIBA’s EuroBasket 2017 finals, where the Serbian national team lost to the Slovenians; and everyone was watching, including everyone in the theatre. At the same time, since the early morning, the city centre had been preparing for the Pride Parade, which later made it to the headlines as the first event of its kind in the region, led by Serbia’s prime minister. Last but not least, the second part of the UTE’s Conference on Theatre Structures took place at the Yugoslav Drama Theatre (A/N Jugoslovensko dramsko pozorište in Serbian, wildly known as JDP).

In the middle of this busy Sunday, when the thickness of the boundaries between politics, society and theatre happened to be so tangible in the context of this city, I talked to Gorčin Stojanović, since 2001 the artistic director of our kind host theatre. And since it seemed to me that his position required a great ability to link what happens on the stage, inside the theatre, to what is going on outside of the building, on the street or into the stage of politics, without letting it harm the artistic autonomy and esthetics, he felt like the best person to speak to this day.

Let’s start with the most obvious questions: Yugoslavia as a political entity is gone but the Yugoslav Drama Theatre is still standing and its name as it was declared by Josip Broz Tito in 1947, when it was established, remains unchanged. How come and what is the message behind that?

Gorčin Stojanović: It’s very simple: this theatre is too much of a brand to be easily renamed. I don’t like using the word “brand”, and I am not doing in ironically, but I need to in order to explain this. And I am talking as a businessman on purpose. It’s just that you don’t rename good products. There are two big brands in the field—the Yugoslav Drama Theatre and the Yugoslav Cinematique, the third cinema factory in Europe and the fourth in the world in terms of funds. And it’s also still called Yugoslav Cinematique because if you changed the name you’d have to start all over again, and you’d delete a 70 year-old tradition.

In the case of JDP, there was some public discussion regarding its name, though not all too much and there hasn’t been any strong pressure to change it. But it’s probably interesting to note that those comments into that direction were not coming from the far-right but from the moderate nationalists instead. And when nationalists ask this question, I always answer one and the same thing: you know that in Berlin there is a Maxim Gorki Theatre. Probably they could have called it Leo Tolstoy or Fyodor Dostoyevsky but they didn’t and named it after Maxim Gorki because he represented an ideology as well. And after the Berlin Wall came down no one thought of changing its name. Because it is a brand and very famous. You don’t rename it simply because the state has changed. So the Yugoslav Drama Theatre will not be renamed either, at least not during our time.

What you just said also exemplifies the complex relations between nations, as imagined communities, culture, political representation and various structures. That naturally leads to the next question, which might be slightly politically incorrect. But, omitting crucial contextual factors and focusing on structures only, you have this experience of living in a transnational union like Yugoslavia, where different nations coexisted. Today we have the European Union, which in a very broad sense also tries to create a larger, overarching structure, covering many different nations, though the process of becoming part of it is completely different. Given your experience, what are the lessons learnt—for good or bad—which should not or should be repeated?

Gorčin Stojanović: Absolutely! And the politically incorrect questions are my favorite ones. Four years ago we held a small conference at the JDP, at the same place where we are today, particularly on this question. Its intention was precisely this: to explore the question of this multinational, multicultural, multi-whatever bodies. And the main thesis was very simple: the Austro-Hungarian Empire was demolished due to nationalism—and here I am talking only about the structures, not about political systems. The Austro-Hungarian state, as we know, was reaching out to some parts of our world, and some of the roads and the railroads that we still use were built back then. The modern infrastructure came with them. Afterwards came the first Yugoslavia (n.b. Kingdom of Yugoslavia) and then the second Yugoslavia (n.b. Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia). And it developed everything further. The building that we are sitting in at the moment was erected during this period. So, in terms of structure, Yugoslavia bears resemblance to the Austro-Hungarian Empire. And it also collapsed. So what makes us believe that European Union will stand forever?

That is why in 2013 I brought three people together—Dubravka Stojanović, a great historian specialized in the Serbian history after the Vienna Congress in 1878 till the First World War, who is leftist in her political views; Predrag Marković, another great historian, who is more right in his political views, you might even say a mild nationalist, but a great scientist and would not make any compromises with the facts; and Milica Delević, an economist and European Union expert. And on the grounds of what had happened before from a historical perspective and what was the situation at the moment, they were able to predict a lot of what happened later: the rejection of the EU Constitution in The Netherlands and France, also Brexit. All of the things that people knew of and preferred to ignore.

Even some early origins of the Conflict Zones project were envisioned in this conference. The UTE president during this time, Ilan Ronen, even suggested that Belgrade should be the headquarter of this project, but the Serbian Ministry of Culture did not realize its potential. And this is the long story, trying to say that of course there is always something good and bad in these structures. But what the Yugoslav Drama Theatre still stands for in the region is that we do collaborate and have always collaborated with each other. We may not have invited that many Croatian directors during the war, for instance, but still the JDP was the first theatre which went to Croatia and Bosnia without any mediation.

As a matter of fact, that was the second part of my question that you already started answering—what is the role and place of arts and theatre in particular in these structures, and how are they implemented through representative institutions such as the Yugoslav Drama Theatre?

Gorčin Stojanović: In 1995, the JDP had this production “Powder Keg”, a play by Dejan Dukovski from Macedonia, directed by Slobodan Unkovski, which was invited all over the world, from Colombia to Rome. But the most important thing is that the first time something ever went from Serbia to former Yugoslavia, to Croatia and Slovenia, it was “Powder Keg”. And the first time a major theatre went to a festival in Sarajevo, again without any mediators, it was again the Yugoslav Drama Theatre with “Powder Keg”. Later, Slovenians came with seven productions to two theatres in Serbia. We were joking that this was a Slovenian invasion. And one of their main actors told us, “Well, we had to come to Belgrade, as Belgrade is the main city”.

What is more, I have calculated that in the past 15 years, the JDP has gone to Zagreb more frequently, and Croatian theatres have come to Belgrade significantly more than before, when we were, so to say, one. And that tells you something. Everyone needs their state and that’s politics. But culturally we are so much connected and that is something different.

And when you prepare the artistic programme of the Yugoslav Drama Theatre today, who are the envisioned audiences? Or, if we go back to business language, who are the target audiences?

Gorčin Stojanović: I can give you a very precise answer. Our audience members come here not only because of the sensuality of theatre but also for its intellectual dimension. I strongly believe that whatever JDP does it has to unite those two dimensions. In different proportions, but both have to be present. Sometimes I really like to laugh and to direct bedroom farces which do not keep me alert that much. However, the audience at the JDP comes for something more. If we try to do something stupidly commercial, they would not be interested. And our directors, actors, set designers… everything is too good for that. Which means that we cannot do cheesy theatre even if we want to.

And this is because the tradition of the Yugoslav Drama has always been a combination of several things. First of all, a high-level of performance skills, meaning the best actors. JDP was based on the model of The Moscow Art Theatre and conceived by taking the best actors from all over Yugoslavia. That was the model but it changed rather quickly. The first premiere of the JDP was on April 3^rd and by the end of June we broke up any relations with the Russians. So the model was not maintained from here on in, but the elite of actors and this idea stayed. Secondly, it has always been a director’s theatre with strong directorial figures, doing daring work. Some of our most daring and politically engaged productions, like “Powder Keg”, lasted on stage for more than 10 years.

In 1969 the only official ban of theatrical performance happened. It was a performance on the dramatization of Drajoslav Mihailovij’s book “When the Pumpkins Blossomed”—one of the best Serbian novels turned into a very artistically and not politically daring piece of theatre at that time. It included one sentence—the kid is addressing the Communists, who came in 1948 to arrest his father and says, “You are worse than Germans” and adds something like, “Russia sucks”. And Tito, who never saw the production, referred to it in a speech and it was banned. And from this moment on something was broken for the next four or even ten years inside the theatre. Not artistically but internally.

In 1985, Jovan Chirilov, a very prominent figure in our theatre history, was elected by the younger members of the troupe and became part of the second management of the JDP. And he was part of the theatre before, thus always working for the Belgrade International Theatre Festival (BITEF), so he was quite knowledgeable. And what he did was to formulate four pillars, that were already there, but he stated them clearly and made them part of the official structure of the repertoire: foreign classics, domestic classics, foreign contemporary plays and domestic contemporary plays. Yet, the requirement was that the classics should always be done in a daring way. It should be a new reading of a classical piece for theatre. Thus, he insisted on bringing in young people—I was one of them. And I did my first production when I was in my 3^rd year of the Theatre Academy.

So now you are paying it forward?

Gorčin Stojanović: Yes, exactly. My only mission for the past 17 years that I have been around the JDP artistically has been to do that: to enable young people to develop. And the idea of excellence is always there. No doubt that you cannot always reach it but you definitely need to strive for it. Even more so in time of crisis! In good times, when you can have seven or eight openings per season, you can probably sacrifice one or two of them. Of course, even then you still do your best, though it might not turn out to be the best. You just cannot limit yourself to trying to fulfill someone’s very specific need but you have to try to do your best. Every compromise is good except for the main compromise of doing something without an artistic reason. The artistic reason could also be wrong sometimes. For instance, I may not agree with everything we have produced artistically, yet I still stand behind everything, even the greatest fails. Luckily, due to this very precise planning, we haven’t had many of them. So my idea is very simple: I am trying to pay forward the chance that I was given as a young director by Jovan Chirilov. This means that directors now come to my office and we talk and talk and exchange thoughts, ideas, and plays. Because, like in soccer, if you do not do well in this team you will end up in some other, group “B” club, which is not Manchester United. So I try to keep that from happening, young people being sacrificed that way. Because this is what we had with Jovan Chirilov—this care and concern, pushing us to make good productions and not to have time to sleep.

And what is next? What should we be looking forward to seeing on the stage of the JDP in the upcoming seasons? And what are future directions that you are envisioning?

Gorčin Stojanović: Right now, we are working with Slobodan Unkovski, a very well-known director in this part of the world—from Athens to Ljubljana. He is working on, what I call a fifth column in our repertoire that appears from time to time, the experimental stuff. The production is called “Einstein’s Dreams” and is based on Alan Lightman’s book, which is not necessarily a piece of fiction, as the author himself is a scientist.

The second upcoming production is “The Mercy Seat” by Neil LaBute, staged at the Studio JDP by the young director Jana Maricic.

Then we will have a new premiere by Iva Miloshevic, who is staging Ivan Turgenev’s “A Month in the Country” with the very renowned Mirjana Karanovic. Then we will do a play by Ivan Cankar, a Slovenian classic, “The King of Betajnova”, which actually was the first performance done at the JDP in 1948. And I think this is a nice illustration of what I have said earlier because this production will be staged by a young, promising director whom I invited to talk to. After a while he told me that he wanted to stage this play. I asked him whether it was because of the anniversary, but he did not know about it and got embarrassed. And I told him, “Even if you lie, I don’t mind because the play is a great choice, and the JDP is the place to do that.”

And the dream is always the same: to have and keep what I called our three “Es”: exclusivity, excellence and esthetics.

Published on 26 September 2017 (Article originally written in Bulgarian)

An Unfortunate Tale Of Not Finding the Truth

It was on Sunday, 17th of September 2017, when several incidents changed the daily routine in Belgrade. The streets of Serbia’s capital were full of police guarding the area where the Pride Parade was about to start, and by noon Kralja Milana Street was already filled with loud beats and pop music. All passers-by were met by countless colorful balloons, rainbow flags and the generally positive vibe of the relatively small gathering outside the Yugoslav Drama Theatre.

PetrovićAt that time, in the same building, the UTE held the second part of its Conference on European Theatre Structures, which was attended by directors, cultural journalists, politicians and artistic directors from theaters of Austria, Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, Russia, Serbia and Luxembourg. An evening performance of Luigi Pirandello’s Right You Are, If You Think So, directed by Jagoš Marković, was also part of this two-day programme. The theatre production had already premiered earlier this year in July to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the birth of this Italian Nobel Prize laureate for Literature. The play itself, as for its interpretation, greatly corresponds to our current post-truth society, and provides a considerable potential for communicating directly with the audience. In short, life in a post-truth world represents a kind of an existential model, where a person distortedly perceives their surroundings due to the overwhelming amount of information or their own laziness to think critically.

Right You Are, If You Think So, directed by Jagoš Marković | Yugoslav Drama Theatre in Belgrade © Nenad Petrović

Regarding the characters of Pirandello’s drama, it is certainly their laziness that drives them into the wheel of sensational suspicions and scandalous wishes that mask their lack of identity and absence of personality. As they are trying to find out the truth, which—from their perspective—stands for a clear resolution, a simplified solution or just a clarification of the storyline they’ve plotted (and which therefore has no solution), their actions are used to demonstrate something disturbing about the human mentality and men’s weakness. Pirandello’s characters are so-called prominent citizens from an unspecified town who have the permanent need to pester someone, and to define others solely because of their changing mood, desires and suspicions. The trigger for this social fuss is a strange married couple and a mother-in-law that newly moves to town, awaking its citizens from their daily apathy. Once they are awake, so is their nosiness, and they are adamant about finding out personal details about their new neighbours.

The theme of identity is symbolised by a huge golden standing mirror, placed unwieldy to the left side of the forestage, vertically to the audience. However, considering its size and symbolic meaning, it’s odd that it’s only used once by a single character, a rather provocative old man Lamberto Laudisi. The scene where he’s staring at his own reflection, doubting not just his clarity but also identity, serves as a manifest of the incapability to recognize the truth. Other characters ignore the mirror with great confidence and, instead of looking at themselves in the reflection, they intensely aim their focus on somebody else.

Besides the mirror, there are only a few other objects on stage, such as several upholstered chairs and a chandelier, once used as a secret microphone. At the very end of the performance, Laudisi climbs on the chandelier, then he’s lifted up a few meters and hangs there as a sign of insanity that took over all of the characters. At the same time, the upset group of citizens is having a fight; meanwhile the stage walls made of green velvet screens collapse, revealing the backstage and the theatre machinery. This abstract scene, designed by Jagoš Marković himself, may at first evoke an interior of a distasteful parlour or a forest, where the characters are lost. After the breakdown, it may then refer to the general chaos and inability to distinguish between reality and illusion.

The costumes designed by Bojana Nikitović support the stylized caricature form of acting, reminding us of Gogol’s collective of small-town officers from The Government Inspector, similarly trapped in their own idiocy. A rather traditional caricature approach strengthens the comedic nature of the characters’ actions; however the form of conversational salon comedy is quickly exhausted, especially on such a big stage. The spectator promptly follows the narrative based on the constant changing of “facts” and their negations. It’s difficult to stay focused , even in just about 90 minutes. Sadly, the show doesn’t offer a vision of the idiocy of society in a contemporary context. It follows the original story without any adaptations that would attract the viewer’s attention, nor does it provoke them to ponder the content. Regarding the production’s aesthetics, the abstract set rather reminds us of socialistic theatre productions from the late 50s than a space related to today’s reality. In the end, this theatre piece keeps its distance to today’s spectator and real life, despite its very lively and topical message.

Published on 25 September 2017 (Article originally written in Czech)

Russian Theatres – Searching for Balance

In the last 20 years theatre has kept pace with changes in civil society in Russia. Society has changed a lot, and the total number of theatres has grown substantially since the 1990s. The reason for this renaissance of theatre is the rising economy and, as the result, the increase in the median income. After the want for tangible status objects has been satisfied, people crave experience: theatre is in vogue now, and, on top of that, going to the theatre is considered to be sophisticated.

Theatre in general—and especially in Russia—is much more than an entertainment facility. It is the keeper of the national cultural and linguistic heritage, the source of inspiration and creativity, and the carrier of social values. One of the primary goals of the government is to provide all Russian citizens with access to these works of art. Prominent members of the cultural community such as Alexander Kolyagin, chairman of the Russian Theatre Union and director of the ‘Et cetera’ theatre, have declared theatre a public good which organizes the social environment and that it is not a service measured by profitability. Theatre’s contribution to social capital is invaluable, which is why government support for theatre ought to be considered investment rather than spending.

Some facts and figures

According to the national statistics, the number of state and municipal theatres reached 651 in 2016. That same year, 87,553 people were employed as actors, stage crew and administrative staff. The theatre companies used 1394 buildings, 20% of which were listed as cultural heritage. However, almost 25% of buildings were in unsatisfactory condition and in dire need of serious reconstruction. This issue is critical for regional theatres which cannot afford reconstruction and renovation of their facilities or some theatres actually fear that the buildings and premises where they are based might be taken from them by investors. The total capacity of the venues amounted to 234,028 seats. Only 2% of the seats were fit to be used by physically disabled people.

In 2016, almost 3,000 plays were played in the Russian state theatres. It amounted to 175,452 performances, including guest (17%) and tour performances in Russia and abroad (3%). Most productions were of plays by classic foreign authors of the 19 and 20^th century and by authors of the Soviet era. The plays written by the modern Russian authors make only 17% of new drama productions. 1.7 billion rubles (25.8 million dollars) were spent on new productions.

For the 2015/2016 season total attendance of theatres was 31.5 million. It is a depressingly small figure if we consider the Russian population—only 250 out of 1,000 people. One of the reasons of the low attendance is the scarcity of regional theatres. There are only 3.2 theatres for every one million people, and only 18.8% of Russian cities have at least one theatre. Moreover, almost half of the population lives in places where they cannot get to any theatre at all. Surveys show that 47% of respondents visit theatres rarely, while 29% of respondents have never attended a theatre in their life.

Legal status and government funding

As to their legal status, Russian theatres can be divided into two categories: state and municipal theatres, and private theatres. State and municipal theatres are again divided into non-commercial organizations, budget-based organizations and state-owned or autonomous organizations; the latter being relatively new. Since 2007, some non-commercial and budget-based theatres in regions all over Russia were changed into autonomous organizations. State theatres can be also classified according to the authority they are dependent on: federal theatres, local theatres, theatres of the Ministry of Culture and theatres of other agencies. Private theatres can be both commercial and non-commercial organizations of various legal forms. In Russia the role of personality in history is of critical importance. As a result, not only economic, but cultural well-being of the region largely depends on the good will and resources of the governor.

State funding is the primary source of income for the majority of state and municipal theatres. According to the reports of the Ministry of Culture, their total 2016 budget was 81 billion rubles (1.3 billion dollars). Only 29% came from the own revenue of theatres while the major share of annual income proceeded from the federal (66%) and regional or municipal budgets (3%). For some theatres the share of government funding exceeded 75% of the annual budget. Donations of sponsors accounted for slightly more than 2% of the theatres’ annual budget.

The unfortunate reality is that all state theatres are commercially unprofitable, and there is no exception to that rule. Even well-known repertory theatres running a significant number of performances in a season cannot make it to zero profit to cover expenses. If we rank state theatres according to the total income they get from all sources the chart-toppers will be the high-class theatres of Moscow and St. Petersburg: the Bolshoy theatre (Moscow), the Mariinsky Theatre (St. Petersburg), the Mikhailovsky Theatre, the Vachtangov theatre (Moscow), the Moscow Art Theatre (Moscow), the Variety Theatre (Moscow), etc. Some experts see the root of the problem in the lack of competition between state theatres. Trying harder to attract consumers would encourage them to improve the product, the same as with any other market.

An autonomous theatre receives funding via a government procurement contract, a so-called municipal task for a specific financial period (three years). Curiously, this form of support sets the theatre on the same level with other social services for residents. The list of services and the standards of their quality are defined by the federal agency in charge of the particular sphere area. In our case it is the Ministry of Culture and the municipal Department of Culture. The theatre is obliged to produce a specified number of shows in total, mount a specified number of new productions, attract no less than a specified number of visitors and sell no less than a specified number of tickets. The list also includes the number of tours and guest performances, of participation in festivals, and of having provided services to disabled people. Quality of services is also measured by the percentage of the house capacity filled, the growth rate of audience attendance compared to last year, percentage of audience satisfied with the provided service and other indicators. The agency calculates the costs for the planned work in advance and allocates a fixed amount of funding to get the work done. By the end of each year the theatre reports the figures by filling the special form that covers all the parameters. The report is publicly available on the theatre’s web page. If the task is not accomplished 100%, funding may be reconsidered for the next period.

Other funding methods include subsidies and fellowships that are annually allocated to theatres in all regions of the Russian Federation. 600 state theatres are allocated regular subventions on an annual basis. Leading theatres receive grants from the President of Russia which are mostly spent on the salaries of actors and staff. Prominent artists receive personal grants to establish workshops and produce new plays. The Theatre Union of the Russian Federation conducts professional laboratories and schools to foster innovations and improve creative and management skills of staff members. Young people employed in the field of art get a monthly raise of 20,000 rubles (~283 euro) from the Russian government. 147 municipal theatres will be given 670 million rubles (9,477,000 euro) for the period of 2017–2020 to renovate their infrastructure, and to bear other expenses.

From time to time one government official or another will point out that approaches to the funding of state and municipal theatres ought to be changed from a fixed to fellowship-based system so that more efficient theatres would get more money. It is not a trivial task since the criteria of efficiency for theatres have been the subject of hot debates. The whole optimization talk may be an attempt to further reduce the gradually decreasing amount of support for culture (which hardly reaches 0.5% GDP).

Some theatres already know that their future funding will be cut down and go through the trouble of providing some safety nets for themselves. The Mariinsky Theatre, for instance, uses its main stage all year round and closes it for reconstruction only for ten days during the summer. When the theatre is on holiday or on a tour, the stage is used by invited companies. The Fyodor Volkov Drama theatre (Yaroslavl) is ready to reconsider its staff schedule and to prioritize its renovation works. The number of performances and hosted international festivals will stay on the same level at any rate, though. Perm Youth theatre and Khabarovsk Youth theatre will have to turn down tours and postpone the planned increase in salaries. However, they are optimistic and are ready to contest for external grants and projects and use internal resources more efficiently in the production of new plays.

Festivals and tours

Theatre festivals are a bright and distinguishing feature of the Russian cultural scene. According to the Russian Union of Theatre Actors, 256 festivals of various art forms are held annually in almost 100 cities. The most well known are the Golden Mask, the Chekhov theatre as well as other festivals that take place in Moscow. Regional Russian theatres regularly host versatile festivals from Europe.

Theatres from central cities and regions frequently give guest performances in other regions during the summer. Touring shows add considerably to local repertoires, increasing and diversifying them, providing a wider choice for the audience as the usual repertoire of a regional theatre is 10–15 shows running year in year out. Travel expenses for tours abroad are compensated either by the Russian Ministry of Culture or by the host country. In 2014, a programme called “Big Tours” (Bolshie gastroli) was established. It promotes tours of federal theatres and theatres of the Ministry of Culture to regions. Plays for a young audience are especially welcome because commercial tours consider them as unprofitable and do not usually include them in their programme. The goal of the programme is to make theatre shows available in the regions which don’t have enough funds to invite theatres on their own. In 2017, the tours are to cover 45 regions of the Russian Federation, 70 cities in total. The federal government compensates the theatre and covers its travel expenses, while the regions are in charge of the accommodation costs and the technical rider. Ticket pricing policy is also left to the regions.

Youth theatre

Youth theatre for children and teenagers is a highly regarded art form in Russia. Theatre is one of the crucial channels of socialization, and cultivation of artistic and creative taste. The effect that first positive impressions have on the forming of the future appetite for arts are invaluable. It is important for a youth theatre to talk about important topics, such as tolerance, loneliness, and suicide. In 2016, 11% of state and municipal theatres were youth theatres while almost 70% of guest performances in other regions were productions of plays from the youth theatre repertoire. 57% of performances given by state and municipal theatres were targeted at a young audience. At 39 festivals, the total number of youth festivals in Russia is quite substantial. In 2017 and later, youth theatres will get approx. 4.2 million euro annually from the state. Approximately 3 million will be divided between regional and municipal youth theatres. The funding will be primarily aimed at new productions to diversify the repertory.

There are lots of theatres for younger children, including puppet theatres; at the same time, there is still a lack of theatres for teenagers or 12+ audiences. Despite the fact that lots of repertory theatres have performances based on literature from the school curriculum in literature, there are still problems that are important for teenagers but are not featured in plays. Teenagers have definitely grown out of fairy-tales with saccharine heroes fashioned to fit the Soviet didactical “Tuyz” (Theatre for the young audience) manner. However, adult issues in dramas may seem too complicated. Long-windedness and a patronizing manner should be avoided under any circumstances.

Recently youth theatre has been infused with new blood—some young directors who are not shy of experimenting, have joined the field. In 2016, the eminent festival “Golden Mask” established a separate section for youth theatres, the Kids’ Weekend, that showcases productions for every age: from toddlers to teenagers. Sixteen shows from various regions of Russia included in the programme yielded a high attendance rate.

Private youth theatres are usually small-scale and mobile. They often play at schools, kindergartens and other education centres because they cannot afford renting a proper venue with a stage, and their scenery is usually easily transportable. Some of them have regular tours in Europe. When a small youth theatre and a large drama theatre work together, it may be very fruitful and blend fresh ideas with funds. Theatres have opened up the laboratory of youth theatre where young directors have a chance to put on new plays of contemporary playwrights. The Meyerhold centre established a program “The Meyerhold Centre for Children”, where actors put a young audience in touch with the art of telling literary texts.

Private theatres: spectacle or laboratory

Private theatres get support through project financing, and they may also contest for state financing. In 2016, 43 private theatres from St. Petersburg got 496,000 euro funding from the City Department of Culture. Non-financial support, such as providing additional venues, is also a great help, as the rent accounts for the lion share of fixed costs. It also includes preferential loans, insurance, social waivers, etc. However, such support creates a tricky interdependence between the theatre and the government. Some government officials use the threat to cut support, or to demand a much more detailed report on used funds, as leverage and as a means to control the repertory of an independent theatre. This is the case of the Theatre.doc, and theatre studio under the guidance of Kirill Serebrennikov.

Apart from the stage activity, theatres raise money from event management, film production, participations in concerts, etc. Some theatres attract sponsors who give money on new theatre productions in exchange for advertisement, or request discounts from energetic companies in exchange for tickets. Other theatres receive regular donations from entrepreneurs, like the Sergey Zchenovach Theatre.

Small-scale theatres spark with innovative and contradictory productions and imaginative ideas, but are short of capital. On the contrary, non-repertory companies are profitable and successfully compete with the repertory theatre. Some non-repertory companies, like the Anthon Chekhov theatre, the Independent theatre project, the Art-Partner XXI, the Quartet ‘I’ and others have been on the theatre market for more than ten years. Their reasons for success are obvious. Theatres cater to the tastes of a mass audience. There are usually one or two hits in the season, comedies, romance and detectives with star actors in leading roles. Half of the performances are played in another region. Theatres economize on the number of employed actors (not more than seven/eight per performance), on the rehearsal period, on scenery (no complex pivotal element), on rental costs (going from one rental venue to another), and maximize the revenue from box sales (the stage hall not smaller than 700–1000 chairs). The engagement process is much simpler since actors are contract workers.

Amateur theatres

Amateur theatres are financed by their participants, volunteers and through crowd funding. They may seem insignificant and hardly worth to be mentioned when we speak about professional theatres, but these tiny art groups are the basis of any theatrical activity. Amateur theatres sometimes conceive new initiatives and practices and, like caterpillars transforming into butterflies, evolve into professional, albeit small, units, and establish their own culture niches. Stanislavsky himself and his troupe started putting on amateur performances on the home stage of their mansion.

Amateur theatres often engage semi-professional actors, such as students of theatre schools, who will participate just for the fun of it, and to practice. Sometimes they get a place free of rent for rehearsals and performances in exchange for teaching children and participating in municipal cultural events. In some aspects amateur theatres may well exceed expectations and adhere enthusiastically to professional ethics and best practices. For instance, the Fellowship Art Group in Moscow successfully purchased official licenses for the production of German and American musicals (Rebecca, Tick, Tick,…Boom!, I love you, You’re Perfect, Now Change). As a half-professional theatre they got a discount on rights by declaring a limited number of shows. In artistic aspects, however, no discounts were made: the scripts were translated into Russian; shows involved actors with decent vocal and artistic skills that had auditioned for the play; and there was live music and a modest but stylish scenery.

Conclusion

Traditional or repertory theatre has been known in Russia for two centuries now. Having a permanent ensemble is the cradle of innovative art and improves traditional art. Distinguished artists pass their skills to younger actors in the course of the intensive work interaction. It will be long until the theatre depends less on the government funding. Without support, traditional theatre would have merely an entertaining role and would have a limited repertory. People in small cities would be even farther away from having a touring theatre in their vicinity, since they don’t have any buildings spacious enough to serve as venues where a commercial company would care to perform.

Live art is in eternal motion and in a constant search for balance. Formalistic and matter-of-fact practices are not what theatre needs. Vladimir Vysotsky, iconic Russian bard and, by the way, the actor of the Taganka theatre, sang about the rope-walker: “Look! He’s facing a fall—on the cord he’s again! Not protected at all, is he sane or insane? Just the tiniest swerve—and around he’ll be thrust. But there must be a reason why he needs to pass the full four quarters of the path!” Theatre is taking the long and winding road to the future. We are lucky to witness its transformation to something even more awe inspiring.

This article was co-written by Oxana Bondarenko and Emiliia Dementsova.

Oxana Bondarenko is an experienced researcher in applied economics. She gained deep understanding in such fields as trade and regulatory policy, corruption, agriculture, budget reform, culture policy. Bondarenko has analyzed the effect of films on trust and altruism, and has investigated price strategies of theatres and demand on theatre tickets for the Russian Ministry of Culture, reviewed articles on economics of theatre for two academic journals. Bondarenko’s academic interests lie in the field of economic psychology. She is a PhD student at the Higher School of Economics and conducts laboratory experiments to study economic models of rationality of the human behavior. She also acts in the amateur musical theatre.

Emiliia Dementsova is a theatre critic, lecturer and the script editor-in-chief at the cinema company Sputnik. She is a PhD candidate at the Lomonosov Moscow State University and is also a member of the International Association of Theatre Critics, and the Russian Union of Journalists. Dementsova has acted as a cultural columnist for «Critical Stages», «European Stages», The Hollywood Reporter, Komsomolskaya Pravda, Theatron, Theatre World, among others. She is a scholar of the Oxford Russia Fund. She received the International Press Club award called Challenge – XXI century for a series of theatre reviews she authored and Russian national literary award “Golden Feather”.

Published on 12 September 2017 (Article originally written in Russian)

Theatre in Serbia today: the resilience of the socially engaged artists

Theatre has always been, more than any other art, influenced by social circumstances due to the complexity of its production and to its presence and immediacy of experience which are created through a direct communication with its audience, in real time and space reflected on stage. In that respect, a set of particularly adverse economic circumstances, which have been ruling Serbian society for the last six or seven years, and which had been caused by the global economic crisis, have led to a dramatic decrease in theatre production. Still, one should also bear in mind that economic circumstances in Serbia are generally way below the European level, and that in times preceding the financial crisis, when the conditions were somewhat more favourable, the production in Serbia was still significantly below European standards.

The System

Institutional theatres in Serbia receive basic funding by the Ministry of Culture and by the regional and municipal governments for their ensembles maintenance, while the finances for new productions have been noticeably reduced. Each theatre has two to three premieres per season, which is at least two times less than they used to have until six or seven years ago. The situation applies to the country as a whole but in particularly to the theatres south of Belgrade. All the major Serbian cities have their own theatres which enjoy the status of national institutions, and are mostly financed by their local governments. In terms of production, the most favourable situation is in Belgrade, after which comes Vojvodina, namely Novi Sad, Subotica, and Sombor.

In Belgrade, there are eleven institutional theatres – the National Theatre, Yugoslav Drama Theatre, Atelier 212, Belgrade Drama Theatre, Terazije Theatre, Zvezdara Theatre, Little Theatre Duško Radović, Boško Buha Theatre, Puppet Theatre Pinocchio, and Theatre Puž (the latter four are theatres for children and young people). Most of the theatres have their own ensembles.

There are currently four privately-owned theatres in Serbia – Slavija, Madlenianum, Carte Blanche, and Le Studio, whose repertories are predominantly commercial, made of comedies, which are well-accepted by the general audience. One exception is Le Studio which offers a more varied programme with more distinct artistic aspirations. In addition to those, there are several multifunctional stages in Belgrade, i.e. cultural institutions which organize theatre, film, music, and fine arts programmes – Cultural Centre Vuk Karadžić, Akademija 28, Cultural Centre Palilula, among which the first one has had the most significant theatre productions over the last several years.

Outside Belgrade, most major towns have national theatres that are financed by local municipal governments, while still remaining eligible for applying for the Ministry of Culture’s individual projects calls. South of Belgrade, towns which have one professional theatre each are Šabac, Zaječar, Kragujevac, Kraljevo, Kruševac, Niš, Leskovac, Pirot, and Vranje. North of Belgrade, there is the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina which, generally speaking, prides itself in a more developed and worthier theatre life and cultural tradition altogether that the south of Serbia. The capital of Vojvodina, Novi Sad, has three institutional theatres—the Serbian National Theatre, the Hungarian Theatre of Novi Sad, and the Youth Theatre. In Subotica, there are also three theatres—the National Theatre with two ensembles, a Serbian and a Hungarian one, Kosztolányi Dezső Hungarian Theatre, and Children’s Theatre. The other towns in Vojvodina which have professional institutional theatres are Sombor, Zrenjanin, Kikinda, Vršac, and Sremska Mitrovica.

The Autonomous Province of Vojvodina is a unique space in Serbia with its inhabitants’ multi-ethnic and multicultural identity, and with many established minority integration projects. According to official records, there are more than twenty-five ethnic groups and six official languages in Vojvodina where, at present, there are professional theatres of the Hungarians, the Romanians, the Slovaks, and the Rusyns. In terms of artistic value, Hungarian theatres in Vojvodina are very significant among Serbian theatres— they could easily be put on the top of the Serbian theatre art. It primarily applies to Kosztolányi Dezső Theatre from Subotica, then also Újvidéki Színház from Novi Sad, and Hungarian drama of the National Theatre in Subotica.

Slovak theatre of Vojvodina, based in Bački Petrovac, has been created as the leading cultural institution of the Slovaks from Vojvodina, with an idea to develop theatre culture on a professional level. That theatre does not have its own ensemble but relies on professional actors from Slovakia. The theatre is obliged to perform in the areas inhabited by Slovaks in Vojvodina, so it often visits small Slovak places. Romanians also represent an important ethnic group in Vojvodina, with a significant number of cultural institutions in Novi Sad, Zrenjanin and Vršac. The Romanian National Theatre acts as an independent theatre within the Sterija Theatre in Vršac.

Repertories

In terms of repertories, the last couple of years have led to the loss of distinction between institutions. Apart from the Belgrade Terazije Theatre, which has remained true to its repertory of musicals and comedies, almost all the other theatres in Belgrade and in Serbia choose random plays, without any clear distinction in programme or in style. This leads to a mixture of classical and contemporary plays by Serbian and foreign authors. Apart from Terazije Theatre, yet another exception is the Kosztolányi Dezső theatre, which has, since 2006, attracted attention by its experimental, powerful performances that express a venture into a new, authentic, unrestrained theatre expression. Among them is a successful, and already cult performance, Urbi et Orbi (2008) by the director András Urbán, who has also directed Turbo Paradise, The Beach, Dogs and Drugs, Passport Europe, while many other excellent plays have been directed by Borut Šeparović (Bikini Democracy), Zlatko Paković (Capitalism), Selma Spahić (4a.m.). Moreover, this theatre has established an annual international festival Desire, which takes place in November. The festival promotes the authors who explore theatre poetics, and has an immense significance not only in its surrounding but also in Serbia as a whole.

Although small in number, the productions that are artistically most valued are still mostly created in institutions, by authoritative directors, strong ensembles, and sensibly chosen plays (on average, just a few artistically relevant performances are presented per season). In terms of artistic value, contemporary Serbian theatre prides itself on several directors and playwrights.

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The most significant directors in Serbia today are András Urbán, Kokan Mladenović, Boris Liješević, Miloš Lolić, Igor Vuk Torbica. In the past couple of years, one performance which has reached the highest artistic value was András Urbán’s The Patriots (2015), produced by the National Theatre in Belgrade, and which had a rich theatre life (Bitef, Sterijino Pozorje, Mitem). Taking the play The Patriots, the best work by Jovan Sterija Popović, the classic Serbian comedy playwright, Urbán has staged it as seen from the present viewpoint. In this new reading, the main plot, which condemns false patriotism, is accompanied by contemporary debates on national issues, political and war songs, but also church songs, all critically approached. Last year, Urbán staged another artistically successful performance in the National Theatre in Sombor, Gogoland, based on the novel of the same name written by János Herceg, a Hungarian writer and academy member from Sombor. The new text has an open, developed and fragmentary structure. It was a basis for a forum-like, documentary-music performance which tackles burning social issues head-on—the position of national minorities, debt bondage, political marketing, and social roles of theatre.

Yet another performance which has lately left a significant mark on theatre in Serbia is The Bridge over Drina (produced by the Serbian National Theatre from Novi Sad in 2016), directed by Kokan Mladenović, another successful director in the region. The play is based on the novel of the same name by the Nobel Prize winning author Ivo Andrić, and represents a visual spectacle with the elements of music, drama and epics, the plot of which spans several centuries describing the bloody history of Bosnia in a multilingual fashion—apart from Serbian, Bosnian and Croatian, the protagonists speak Turkish, German and Hungarian, all of which is surtitled. In terms of ideas, Mladenović is consistent in his criticism of incessant evildoing. In that respect, Bosnia is a space which speaks volumes both literally and metaphorically, since it represents an area of antagonism and intense passions, a volcano of multinational conflicts. In Belgrade and in Novi Sad, we have recently seen another successful performance by Mladenović, Jami District, written by Milena Bogavac and co-produced by the Centre for Culture Tivat (Montenegro), the Bitef Theatre (Belgrade), the Think Tank studio from Novi Sad, and the Maszk Festival from Szeged. The story is based on a pseudo-documentary and satirically-absurd situation of discovery of Jamena, a village between Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina where, allegedly, the oldest Palaeolithic settlement in the history of mankind has been discovered. The plot tackles the social and political issues between the three countries, but also vigorously confronts the global cynicism of neoliberal capitalism.

Boris Liješević is another regionally acclaimed director who works not only in Serbia but also in Montenegro, Bosnia, Macedonia, Croatia, and Slovenia. In the past couple of years, he has become famous mostly for his excellent projects that often fall into the realm of documentary theatre. Created through the protagonists’ true stories, they have raised some socially relevant issues—corruption, false morality, privatisation, the effect of political changes on personal lives (Waiting Room, Fertile Days, The Fifth Park). Igor Vuk Torbica, the youngest among these directors, has achieved a tremendous regional success by his staging of Ernst Toller’s Hinkemann, produced by the Zagreb Youth Theatre. Taking Toller’s expressionist, anti-war play (1923) as a starting point, Torbica has developed a post-dramatic piece of art, multi-layered both in structure and in meaning, creating it by means of an amazing confrontation between fragments of drama, cabaret, physical, and epic theatre. The story is set in war-torn Europe tortured by social spectacles which entertain the masses to exhaustion, even when the topic of that entertainment is tragedy. In Serbia, Torbica’s successful performances are The Broken Jug by Heinrich von Kleist (Yugoslav Drama Theatre, 2015), and The Power of Darkness by Tolstoy (the National Theatre in Belgrade, 2017).

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Some of the most significant playwrights of the younger generation are Olga Dimitrijević, Maja Pelević, Tanja Šljivar, Vuk Bošković, Milena Bogavac. Olga Dimitrijević, who has received the Sterija Award for her play Workers Die Singing, has established herself as a “total” theatre author. She dramatized but also directed the play Red Love (Bitef Theatre, 2016) based on the novel Free Love (1923) written by the Russian revolutionary writer Alexandra Kollontai. In the performance, the love story between Vasilissa and Vladimir represents the basis for a wider exploration of burning issues, the relationship between private and public, love and politics, the problems of social revolutions, and the abandonment of those. The play New Age, by Vuk Bošković, was staged this year in Bitef Theatre and represents a piercing contemporary analysis of the current social and political circumstances. The fragmented structure and the interlacing of two sequences of events brings forth current torments of social transitions. The author raises the question of privatisation and grey economy, the doings of untouchable tycoons, political marketing manipulation, post-war trauma, and the most current problem of immigration and the overall chaos in Europe.

Independent scene

The independent scene in Serbia has recently been artistically weaker than it used to be during the nineties, when it exuded more power both in terms of quality and of quantity. Nowadays, very few performances find their way to the audience and positive critique. Those are usually the productions by Zlatko Paković in the Centre for Cultural Decontamination, or in the Student Cultural Centre in Novi Sad – To Kill Zoran Đinđić, Don Quixote or What Are the Windmills Today and Where the Wind Comes from, Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People as a Brecht’s Didactic-Play. All of those performances are socially engaged, post-dramatic type of lecture-performances which bring forth the clashes between elitism and populism, literary-historical and documentary-modern. The most successful among the aforementioned is Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People as a Brecht’s Teaching-Play (2014), in which Paković problematizes denotational closeness between Ibsen and Brecht in terms of creating a critical, political theatre. By creating links between Brecht’s songs to drama scenes in Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People, but also to scenes based on real political and social life, actors and musicians have made a powerfully engaged theatre. Its purpose is to instruct the audience on how to discover and prove (hidden) truth in society, but also to make us aware of the necessity of fighting for personal freedom, without which we are nothing.

Festivals

Festivals play an important role in the Serbian theatre system. It is often discussed whether we have too many of them in Serbia today. Given the fact that almost every major city in Serbia has its own theatre festival, and some more than one, the discussion is justified, especially since the programmes are often very similar, sometimes even overlapping. All of the festivals are, undeniably, locally relevant since they enliven local communities, which does represent an argument for their survival, but at the state level, they are less important.

The relevance of the two major festivals, Bitef and Sterijino Pozorje, is unquestionable, since they enjoy international acclaim as well. Bitef has been a Serbian cultural brand for decades – it is a festival which has always been presenting the most relevant international theatre authors who rely on the avant-garde. On the other hand, Sterijino Pozorje, annually held in Novi Sad, is the most significant national festival. It has undergone various transformations in the past couple of years, trying to redefine its identity after the breakup of Yugoslavia. Since its inception in 1956, it was the most relevant festival of Yugoslav drama. The breakup of the country reduced the space and gave rise to the necessity of its reinvention. For a few years, Sterijino Pozorje featured as the festival of the best national drama and theatre, but this year, it returned to its original concept of being the festival of national plays. The festival Days of Comedy, held in Jagodina, has an almost five-decade long tradition and the festival is given great local and national importance due to its uniqueness. The programme is highly national given that is only consists of theatres from Serbia. Other festivals worth mentioning are Infant, held in Novi Sad, which is international and focused on experimental works, and the festival Desire in Subotica, mentioned earlier, which also promotes theatre of the avant-garde heritage.

Criticism

Theatre criticism in Serbia is present and influential but not in a favourable position due to the general lack of interest among the media to engage the critics. Another trend is the disappearance of theatre criticism in the media, while it has not fully become present on the Internet, yet. When it comes to daily newspapers, it still exist in Politika, Večernje novosti, Dnevnik and Danas. In weekly magazines, it is still published in NIN and Vreme, while it is also present in the electronic media, at Radio Television of Serbia (the public broadcaster), and at Radio Television of Vojvodina.

Criticism does influence the public opinion in Serbia, although artists and producers often negate its impact, pronouncing it irrelevant or non-existent. As expected, what causes this attitude is the “negative” criticism, which makes the authors relativize the influence. If the criticism were not important, it would not be talked about; if the critics were not important, they would not be insulted and belittled. Therefore, since criticism and critics are often talked about in Serbia, since “the criticism of criticism” is as strong as ever, there is no better proof of its influence and its necessity.

Published 19 July 2017 (Article originally written in Serbian)

The Threesome Tango: Spectator-Theatre-State

They say in Russia: “If he beats you, it means he loves you”. This attitude, which may strike a foreigner as a bizarre one, can hardly surprise any Russian as a thing much out of the ordinary. Recently the media and social networks were racked with violent debates on the issue of decriminalizing domestic violence. Even though the draft of the law that will decriminalize domestic violence has been denounced by the general public, it has been passed by the legislators, and now beating up one’s near and dear ones is not a crime but a misdemeanor to be looked into by administrative bodies (in the case of the first offence, that is).

In Russia the theater is an object of great love, and it is something to take pride in and brag about. As one of Chekhov’s characters worded it, “We can’t do without the theatre”, and the public, even if bemoaning the high prices of the tickets, still will now and then fall to a theatre-going spree. The spectator is a co-creator of the performance, just like the actor. The contemporary theatre won’t stand for its audience to stay unconcerned and apathetic, but will demand from it the maximum degree of involvement. Unlike the actors, the spectator is “a player who plays many roles”, and thus has to know how to tune to each new show, how to be sensitive, daring, and prepared for the discoveries that are to be made. I teach a class at the Moscow School of Journalism, of the Central House of the Journalists’, my course is an optional one, it is titled “Profession: Theatergoer”, and its objective is to teach theatre-goers to understand and accept theatrical experiments and forms that are most diverse. The theatre can do without the director, the playwright, the designer, and even without actors, but not without the public; that very public which has so often been reproached for the lack of comprehension, narrow-mindedness (the stalls and the gallery alike), ignorance, and shallowness. Yet without it the theatre can’t exist. In my first lecture I suggested to my students (the first group turned out to be 100 percent female, ages ranging from 17 to 65) to answer the question: “Why do you go to the theatre?” The answers more or less neatly fell into the following groups:

Need to have social interaction, to communicate with live people
Tradition/habit
To “go out”/it is fashionable
Seeking emotional impact
Seeking aesthetic pleasure
Self-improvement
To forget about problems! escapism
For entertainment
In search of a miracle!

My colleagues (critics also are spectators, aren’t they?) insist that theatre helps them to develop their own creative faculties, helps them to study, to learn new things, and instructs them in understanding oneself and the history of our country. As to the role of the theatre in social shifts, its ability to change the surrounding life, to help us understand people belonging to cultures different from ours, to be less ethno-centric, and more tolerant, why, we have had talks about this too.

The theatre does influence the public, that’s indisputable, but the reverse is also true: in the recent years the public in Russia has been wielding considerable influence over the theatre. And when I say “influence”, I don’t mean the effect that the audience’s bursting into applause or angry shouts may have upon the development of any performance, nor the fact that shows that fail to win the public close and get excluded from theatre repertoires. Critical reviews don’t have that strong a sway over theatre life as letters from audience members. Letters addressed to the office of the Public Prosecutor, or other governmental bodies of similar caliber, in which the writers demand that their addressees have this or that show shut down, and the author punished. People who work in theatres now know the articles of the RF Criminal Code that cover offending religious feelings of the believers inside out – the offence that is mostly imputed by the vigilant public to the directors who are alert to social controversies and touch upon socially raw spots. The “Free Word” association made a report titled “Russia, 2016-2017. Violations of and the government imposed restrictions upon the freedom of speech, freedom of press, freedom of expression”, with one of the chapters devoted to censorship in theatre: the “culture managing” governmental bodies acting dictatorial, depriving “harmful” art of state subsidizing, censorship introduced due to “feelings of the believers being offended”.

The precedent case, the one that became the symbol of oppression and bans in the sphere of theatre, was that of “Tannhäuser” staged by Timofey Kulyabin. The story that makes the plot of Richard Wagner’s opera was transported to the contemporary world: the titular character is a film director who is making a movie about the unknown, the sinful life of Jesus Christ. The charge against Timofey Kulyabin and Boris Mezdrich, the head of the Novosibirsk State Opera and Ballet Theatre, was that of defiling religious symbols intentionally and publicly. The criminal case was initiated upon the complaint filed by Tikhon, Metropolitan of Novosibirsk and Berdsk in January of 2015. Metropolitan Tikhon found that treatment of the opera’s plot offensive to the feelings of the believers. But on 10 March, Justice of the Peace of the Central district of the city of Novosibirsk discontinued the proceedings against Mezdrich and Kuliabin, due to insufficient evidence. The Public Prosecutor’s office appealed against that ruling, but later recalled their appeal. On 29 March, Mezdrich was fired by Vladimir Medinsky, the Minister of Culture. To fill Mezdrich’s office Vladimir Kekhman was appointed, who extirpated the opera from the repertoire. On 13 April, the Investigation Department of the Siberian Federal District of the Investigative Committee of Russia declined to initiate criminal proceedings against Mezdrich and Kulyabin. The resolution was based on the results of the preliminary examination.

It was to be followed by:

10 events in the theatre life of Russia in 2015-2017

2015 – The “Glavplakat” association placed a banner right across the Ministry of Culture premises that read “Do we need this kind of culture” and showed photos of several directors: of Kirill Serebrennikov, Konstantin Bogomolov, Timofey Kulyabin, as well as one of Marat Guelman, gallery owner. The site of the Association imparted upon its readers the following:

“The banner honors these Russian directors:

Timofey Kulyabin, who crucified Christ between the legs of a naked woman in his version of ‘Tannhäuser’;

Konstantin Bogomolov, who presented the crucifix as a naked woman in his version of the play ‘The Ideal Husband’;

Kirill Serebrennikov, who desecrated icons in his stage version of the fairy-tale ‘The Golden Cockerel’, as well as the gallery owner Marat Guelman, who gathered all the objects that offended believers in one place, making the exhibition ‘Russia 2’.”

“In all epochs culture and art have marked the highest point of the societal evolution. All the newest, most progressive and valuable ideas have always reflected in works of art. And now, in present-day Russia they are trying to persuade us that the best our society can achieve is spitting into another person’s soul, mocking things valuable or even sacred to multitudes.

“We refuse to believe that it is indeed so. It seems to us that these people, who have wantonly privatized the title ‘contemporary and progressive artist’ are just ordinary deceivers. That’s neither culture nor art, that’s some freak-show, exploiting shocking tricks. Stop buying fakes.”

“What I’d like to say: they could have made a better likeness of me”, commented Konstantin Bogomolov on his FB page. “Will you kindly contact me the next time? I will be only too happy to sit for the portrait. But do find some decent designers, the kind who know how to use their hands. But all in all, it is, well, OK. Right next door to the school I went to when I was a kid. So that my teachers may have a really good look at it, enjoy it, and feel gratified. They have brought me up well, to turn out to be the right kind of guy!”

2015 – Exhibition “The Lower Depths” at the “Flacon design factory”. The “Art Without Borders” Foundation exhibited photos from theatre productions which, in their opinion, have breached some ethical or aesthetic norms. “Not all people like to see bawdy things acted out in the theatre, or hear bad language there, and these people also have their right to express their viewpoint, especially since much of it was produced with government money”, it said on the site of the Foundation. Under each photo there were some figures (from an unknown source) that informed visitors how much money from some governmental budget had gone into producing this or that show. The exhibition that opened on 14May (officially it was a private event unavailable for the general public) was shut down the very next day, and the creative director of the gallery offered his apologies to all who might have been offended by the event. This event was the cause for harsh criticism with several shows of the Bolshoy theatre, the A.P. Chekhov Moscow Art Theatre, the “Gogol-centre” theatre, “Electrotheatre”, the Novosibirsk Opera and Ballet Theatre, the Yekaterinburg Theatre for Young Spectators, and also brought about some indignation on social media amongst theatregoers. It furthermore triggered debates on censorship in arts and culture, and on the freedom of speech and artistic self-expression. The most striking statement in this context came from Kirill Serebrennikov:

“The continuing persecution of the contemporary Russian theatre effected through Degenerate Art (EntarteteKunst) sort of exhibitions, and abusive shit-throwing assaults in the media-turned-propagandists is a thing that, conventionally, you better say nothing about and write nothing about, so as not to give this ugliness any additional resonance. Conventionally you’d better ignore them. Yet our squeamish recoiling from these scumbags, our, to be more precise, disgusted silence, allowed them to feel like they are running the world. These stupid clowns mean to destroy that which is so important to such great quantities of clever and talented people — our audiences, that is. They continue to grab more and more government money for themselves, while the government is cutting down all cultural spending, sequestering the entire budget. […] This policy, carried out by a group of aggressive culture-managing officials, aims at completely destroying the new winning and powerful trend in contemporary theatre. For fifteen years the shows of this theatre were sold-out events, it has molded a new generation of artists, and has earned Russia quite a reputation in the world. It developed to maturity thanks to powerful government support. Now people who have come to run culture declare war upon this successful and talented theatre. Crushing criticism in the ranting propagandistic programmes on TV, made-to-order articles in the domesticated media, pressing through fiscal agencies, searches, exhibitions meant to expose and shame, agitative posters—all the methods are seen as fit to be used…”

And here is the answer of Vladimir Medinsky, the Minister of Culture:

“It was precisely the civil society that became indignant at that production of ‘Tannhäuser’ by the Novosibirsk Academic (!) theatre. Our Ministry didn’t blunder when we sacked a theatre director who didn’t bother to enter into dialogue with representatives of the society. We blundered because we took too long with this sacking. Honestly, a production like this should have been rejected by the head of the theatre when it was just a concept.

“In May 2015, the ‘Art Without Borders’ foundation held an exhibition in Moscow, entitled ‘The Lower Depths’, which was devoted to theatre productions of the past few years that have caused much controversy. Each of the ‘exhibits’ was thoughtfully provided with a label, which said how much money this very theatre had received from some governmental budget. I personally understand this kind of civil activity as an attempt to force the state to do its duty in the field of cultural policy. We can’t and won’t continue to ignore, in the totalitarian sort of way, opinions of the majority of our citizens. When you fall ill and go to the local clinic for help, you wouldn’t like to be surprised by some ‘non-traditional’ treatment, would you? Do you indeed want some miraculous new drug to be tested on you, an experimental kind of drug? Somehow I don’t think so. The system of the public healthcare of any country in the world is based on the standardization of the methods of treatment, those that have been tested and probed many times, and are guaranteed by the state and by science. In exceptional cases the need to use some non-standard methods might arise, as a last resort—but you would be repeatedly warned about it being experimental, and you would be offered to make your choice consciously, aware of the possible consequences. As for the fans of the alternative, the non-traditional medicines take care of that, which are not subsidized by the State. Same goes for the arts. The only difference is that a non-traditional artist experiments not on the body of a single patient, but on the souls of many thousands.”

2015 – several Moscow theatres (A.P. Chekhov Moscow Art Theatre, Vs. Meierhold Centre, Gogol-Centre, Satiricon theatre) received requests for information from the Public Prosecutor’s office in connection with the appeal that had been made by the “Arts Without Borders”, an independent foundation for developing culture. It was decided to examine the plays making repertoire of some theatres for the obscene language usage on stage, for propagandizing amoral ways, and for containing elements of pornography. According to the Novaya gazeta (The New Gazette), the letter addressed to Victor Ryzhakov, the artistic director of the V.S. Meierhold Arts centre, contained a request to inform the Public Prosecutor’s office whether the repertoire of the theatre includes such plays as “The Threepenny Opera” (A.P. Chekhov Moscow Art Theatre), “Anthony & Cleopatra. A version.” (Sovremennik theatre), “The Golden Cockerel” (Bolshoy theatre), “About Zero” (A.P. Chekhov Moscow Art Theatre), “The Naked Girl Pioneer” (Sovremennik theatre), “Modelling Clay” (The Centre for Dramatic Art and Directing), “Spring Awakening” (Gogol-centre), “All Shades of Blue” (Satiricon theatre), “Salome” (Roman Viktiuk’s theatre), ”Things Are Great” (Practice theatre), “The Ideal Husband. A comedy” (A.P. Chekhov Moscow Art Theatre).Besides, the office seemed interested in learning certain particulars about the directors of the above-mentioned shows, as well as in getting a rough idea of the contents of these works of art. They also wanted to know whether there were any underage actors who participated in the shows, and “whether the contents of the production have passed any preliminary reviewing (by critics, or by art theorists) at some executive agency before they were staged to be shown to the general public.”

Most of the above-mentioned productions were directed by Kirill Serebrennikov,; none of them are in the repertoire of the Vs. Meierhold Centre, which the Public Prosecuter’s office was informed about by the theatre.

“Additionally I request that we are provided with the scripts of the shows from the above-mentioned list that are in the repertoire of the Vs. Meierhold Centre, as well as video recordings of the performances on any tangible medium (or inform us if it is possible to send the video-recordings by e-mail)”, said the request that was signed by the Public Prosecutor of the Tverskoy district of the city of Moscow, V.V. Mozhaev”.

2016 – in the city of Omsk the performance of the rock-opera “Jesus Christ Superstar” by a touring St. Petersburg theatre was cancelled due to the protests of the representatives of a social movement “Family, Love, Motherland”. “The very plot of the rock-opera ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ is a continuous blasphemy and treading upon the sacral; it makes mockery of faith and abuses the hallow images, which is profanity pure and simple, the very title of the show is desecrating the sacred. Interpreting holy texts loosely, introducing into the plot debauchery that is incompatible with the Christian ideals cannot but bring forth the feeling of repulsion and protest in any believer, of whatever confession,” it says on the movement’s website.

2016 – In the city of St. Petersburg the performance of the play “All shades of blue” produced by Konstantin Raikin was interrupted twice because of the false alarms triggered by anonymous phone calls. Activists of the Narodny Sobor (People’s Congregation)movement took their stand in front of the theatre entrance, and offered leaflets to the public about the harmfulness of homosexuality. Vitaly Milonov, deputy of the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg, filed a complaint in the Public Prosecutor’s office, demanding the show to be examined for the infringements of the law that prohibits propaganda of homosexuality among underage persons. According to Milonov, the show “is damaging moral health”.

The show is a production based on a play of the same title that won an award at the “Liubimovka” Young Russian Playwrights’ festival in 2014. The play was written by Vladimir Zaitzev; it is about a schoolboy who confesses to his parents that his sexual preferences are not traditional. The parents opt for having their son “treated” in a psychiatric clinic.

“When I was making this show, I kept thinking about Mandelstam, Brodsky, Malevich. Generally about people who differ from the identity of all the others. They couldn’t feel differently from the way they felt, and couldn’t lie about their true feelings. The world generally, but Russia with particular cruelty, is relentlessly intolerable of everyone who is different”, said Konstantin Raikin in an interview.

“When they suggest we produce a show devoted to, quote / unquote two-three mishap chromosomes’ whose image provokes nothing but repulsion in the people, and it is being represented at the expense of those very people, mind you. Nobody owes anything to artists—it is you who owe to society. If you disagree, don’t take a job at a state owned establishment. Why do you, while holding a job at a state owned establishment, consider it fair to insult society, while living on government money, and you dare teach others how they ought to live”, said Vladimir Aristarchov, Deputy Minister of Culture.

At the Union of Theatre Workers of RF convention Konstantin Raikin, People’s Artist of Russia, the head of Moscow theatre “Satiricon” made a very emotional speech, which stirred society and brought about a general discussion on the issue of the unacceptability of censorship.

“Now these little groups of allegedly insulted people, who shut shows down, who behave insolently, whom the authorities tolerate with some very strange reserve, keeping their distance. It seems to me that these are some ugly attacks on the freedom of expression, on the outlawing of censorship. And banning censorship is the greatest event that has had a century-long impact on the artistic and spiritual life of our country”, said Konstantin Raikin. Many significant figures in the sphere of arts and culture sided with the famous actor: director Andrey Zviagintzev, the head of the Theatre of Nations Andrey Mironov, director of the State Hermitage Museum Mikhail Piotrovsky, etc.

“As to the show about ‘Fifty shades’ (‘All Shades of Blue’ – author’s note). The Ministry of culture never introduced any sanctions against this show whatsoever. The experts from the department concerned viewed the show, said they found nothing infringing the law in it, so all questions were removed from the agenda. I was flabbergasted by Konstantin Arcadievich Raikin’s speech because he is the last person to complain about censorship, it’s absurd. As far as I remember, nobody has ever forbidden Satirikon theatre and Raikin personally anything, nobody has ever given them instructions, or advice. There must be some other reason behind it”, said Vladimir Medinsky, Minister of Culture, in an interview with “TV tzentr”.

On 2 December, at the joint meeting of the Counsel for Culture and Arts under the auspices of the President of the RF, Vladimir Putin said: “On the one hand, all offensive escapades, attempts to wreck a show, an exhibition, are absolutely unacceptable, and ought to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. And we will do exactly that. On the other hand, within the creative milieu, I’d like to particularly emphasize this aspect of the problem, within and inside that creative milieu the borderline between cynical and offensive show-offs and creative actions ought to be defined.” The president also suggested that the cultural workers should work out some criteria for works of art that would make it clear whether they break the law or insult anybody’s feelings. “It isn’t an easy task, but it would be great if not we, but you yourselves managed to accomplish that. To tell the truth, it would be easier for me to hold back the officials who tend to go too far”, remarked Vladimir Putin.

On 14 December, 2016, the “Public Opinion” foundation published the results of their survey titled “Is it acceptable to ban works of art?”, which were: 47% (9% less then the previous year) believe that banning works of art is unacceptable, and 46% believe that such a practice is acceptable.

2016 – Igor Gladnev, the Minister of Culture of the Perm region, arbitrarily fired Boris Milgram who headed “Theatre-Theatre” in the capacity of artistic director. The official insisted that “the guidelines that have been declared by the head of the theatre are inconsistent with the function meant for the theatre he heads, are inconsistent with the tasks set before the state establishments in the concept of the state cultural policy approved by the president of Russia.” Boris Milgram, the winner of the “Golden Masque” award, who had never been shy of theatrical experiments and “new forms”, explained his dismissal from office by personal dislike that the Perm region Minister of culture had nursed against him. The actors of Theatre-Theatre stood up in protests against the dismissal of their artistic director, as did the theatre circles of Russia. As a result, Igor Gladnev was suspended from his office, and Boris Milgram was restored in his, that of the artistic director of the Theatre-Theatre. Yet very soon a new outrage blazed up, this time about the show “The Blue Room” (based on the play of the same title by David Hare): some activists filed an offensive-to-the-feelings-of-the-believers complaint, but the Public Prosecutor’s office didn’t find any evidence.

2016 – A group of deputies of the State Duma brought in a draft proposing to make defiling works of art or letters in public administratively liable, as well as impeding the screening of a film or performance of a show. To illustrate their purpose, the authors of the draft reminded of the following incidents: at the exhibition of the works by photographer Jock Sturges, which were presented in the Lumière Brothers Photography centre, one of the visitors splashed an exhibited photo with urine; at the exhibition “Sculptures we don’t see” in the Manege, activists of the Orthodox believers’ movement “God’s Will” started to smash sculptures made in the years 1960-70, insisting the objects offended the feelings of the believers); with the play “The Ideal Husband” that ran at the A.P. Chekhov Moscow Art Theatre, the activists who described themselves as Orthodox believers climbed onto the stage during the performance, with the intention to wreck the show; later they left a pig’s head on the door-step of the theatre* and orders to shut down the show). “In the years 2014-2016, several dozens of performances were wrecked, in many different cities of Russia”, the deputies remarked in the note that accompanied the draft.”

*”I would like to say a few words to certain so very pushy persons: don’t you bother about bringing any more pigs’ heads to the theatre doorstep, but store them in the refrigerator instead, which is where food ought to go. It seems that these days we are confronted with characters that pop up from nowhere, wanting to tell artists what they are to do, and at times in an unacceptably aggressive form, too. I am a man who has seen a thing or two in my life, so I didn’t shut down that show. Several years passed, and the show is running beautifully, and the public keeps coming to see it”, said Oleg Tabakov, People’s Artist of the USSR, the artistic director of the A.P. Chekhov Moscow Art Theatre.

2017 – The Council of the Orthodox patriotic communities made a list of film and theatre directors whom they labeled “russophobic”.

“It is high time that responsible officials, whose office is to govern, and whose job concerns cultural issues, stopped being hypnotized by a tiny bunch of self-proclaimed geniuses who aggressively insist they are licensed to enjoy boundless freedom. Freedom implies responsibility, and cannot be stretched to include ‘creators’ who intentionally mock things that are dearest to the majority of the people, who spit right into the soul of the people. That’s the core difference between them and the true artists, whose creativity is nourished by faith and bonds tying them to their own national cultural tradition. We must resist the false stereotype, so aggressively inculcated by this lobby, that implies that there cannot be any bans in art, that artistic practices are outside the authority of law and morals. Because culture is based on norms, and norms cannot exist without bans.”

2017 – The Public Prosecutor’s office initiated an investigation concerning productions of the Taganka Theatre upon receiving a complaint about the play “Sweeney Todd: the demon barber of Fleet-street”, which had been filed by a certain Romanov Kniaz Monomakh. The complaint contained several excerpts from articles published by news agencies, a statement to the effect that the show propagandizes violence, and a legislative initiative that was worded in the following way: “I propose the people’s budget is spared and the Ministry of Culture is dismissed, in accordance with the 205 Article of the RF Criminal Code (terrorism)…”

2017 – The RF State Duma passed the decision to form a Council for Culture, Religion, and Interethnic Relations. Supposedly the council will concern itself with having young people be brought up in a patriotic spirit, as well as push for activities that prevent extremism from spreading in the sphere of culture.

Strong itch to act the whistle-blower, lust for profit, natural meanness or weakness of character, susceptibility to manipulative techniques, or, possibly, sincere, even if misplaced, belief in the rightfulness of the cause—whatever the motives behind the citizens’ speaking out against one show or another, and demand it were closed (quite often the activists have never even seen the event they want to have destroyed), they seem to be the die-hard ones. And I would add one more cause of the spectators’ indignation and noxious response to this or that show—namely, longing for the paradise lost. The concept of an earthly “paradise lost” is common to many religions, epics, myths of different peoples and different epochs. The famous Sumero-Akkadian epic poem tells us about Dilmun, a country inhabited by gods, where there is no death, and no illness. All living creatures there live in concord with each other. “In Dilmun the crow doesn’t croak. The Ittidu bird doesn’t screech. The lion doesn’t kill, the wolf won’t snatch the lamb.” Now compare Dilmun with the theatrical community of your own country, and you will make out the difference to be day and night.

The myths of Ancient Greece inform us about a northern country Hyperborea, where the offspring of the Titans lived. Their civilization was highly developed: immaculately moral, advanced technology, and magnificent arts. Yet Hyperborea perished, with no trace of it left.

There is an opinion that the “paradise lost” concept being this widely spread might not only be due to cultural and historic causes, but due to psycho-physiological ones, too. Psychologists insist that all of us have, subconsciously, memories of being in our mother’s womb. After having been born into the unkind world we start to yearn for the time when we were surrounded by the warmth and care of our mother’s body.

Theatre itself, ever striving to penetrate the essential core of the human being, is very much like a human being. Theatre yearns for its paradise lost, for its golden age, for “the ideal model”. In theatre circles (and theatre goers ought to be considered part of it), talks about the outstanding figures of the times bygone frequently occur, and about some specific time and place where once upon a time the perfect theatre used to abide. That perfect theatre is often referred to as “classical theatre”. There is no agreement on what “classical theatre” is or might be. “Classical theatre” is a vague notion of the theatre from “the good old days”, and by deploying that term, it generally means looking down on any new form of contemporary theatre. Theater-goers sigh, distressed by that which has just been presented to them, and say that “art still owes a lot to the public”, and nostalgically speak about theatre’s “paradise lost”.

The weather in paradise is always pleasing (psychological environment including); nobody is hungry and everybody is friendly. There are no emotions in paradise, because life there is so very regular and peaceful. In paradise, established order reigns once and forever. There is no rivalry in paradise. It resembles utopias, many of which tend to turn into a tyranny only too often. No theatre, neither generally speaking, nor any particular one, has ever lived in conditions like that. Conditions like that are contrary to its very essence, its turbulent creative core.

Theatre is alive and always has been alive, thanks to the exchange and collision of thoughts and ideas, creative practices and concepts. Rivalry and partnership coexist within it. Any striking human identity gets enriched and enriches the cultural codes, the roots of any nation. Theatre, like the city, thrives on diversity; it takes them as they come—emotions, ideas, experiences, facts, philosophies, religions, languages—and can never get enough.

I don’t think that discussions about the beautiful bygones may be of any use for the beautiful tomorrow we have under construction. The theatre of tomorrow is a theatre that embraces both Ginkas and Wilson, both recitations and experimenting, and new forms of all kinds. The theatre of the past is a theatre with one single trend domineering. A domineering single style, or a single vision, however great the artists may be, will never bring about anything good if granted a monopoly. Things will just freeze in their tracks. The immortality of the theatre is in motion, in exploration, in things being “artistically disorganized”. Besides, as another of Chekhov’s characters put it, “there is room enough for all, for the new and old alike. Why […] push and shove?”

In spite of all the outrages and feverish sways, and the working conditions that are much too often much too far from being perfect, the theatre in Russia is alive, diverse, continuously in quest for the unknown, and often succeeds with surprising the audience with the most marvelous discoveries. And precisely for this reason it is so important to talk about anything that prevents the theatre and people in the theatre from working freely, from discovering more and more new ways of understanding the reality that surrounds us.

Theatre strives to and is capable of destroying barriers not only between the stage and the audience, but in places beyond the theatre. Theatre always has been and still is the space where civilian life abides. Theatre as an art form energetically opposes and tries to overpower war theaters. Theatre crosses borders and overcomes stereotypes. Theatre is a form of communication and mutual enrichment. As director Andrey Goncharov put it, “Theater is a man to man conversation on Man.”

Note by the author: The day after this article was finished the following statement was published on the site of the Russian Artistic Union, an organization that came to be quite recently, informing the public about the general concept of this organization, and the general directions it plans to take. In particular, in section “Theatre” it said:

“We believe that Russian theatre is in deep crisis. While going over once again through the ABC that the Soviet theatre, as well as the theatres of Western Europe had mastered long ago, most of our creative workers have ceased to concern themselves with the aim of bringing out the best in their audiences. The refusal on principal to adopt any ideology at all turned out to become a new dictatorship that demands that sin and saintliness, the base and the great are equaled. Relinquishing all moral evaluations is insistently proclaimed as the basic principle, as if to fit the spirit of the famous thesis ‘let all flowers bloom’. Having ceased to be the cathedra for preaching lofty ideas, the theatre has reserved for itself only one single function, that of the entertainer, and the seat of the civil truths is now taken by casual journalistic blabber, borrowed from the ‘Echo Moskvy’ (‘Echo of Moscow’) radio station and the TV channel “Dozhd” (Rain).

UPD

The Russian Investigative Committee said the Gogol Center theatre and the apartment of its art director, Kirill Serebrennikov, were searched on 23 May in connection with an embezzlement case. Dozens of cultural figures came to Serbrennikov’s defense, signing a statement calling him “an honest, fair, and open person.”

Published on 28 June 2017 (Article originally written in Russian)