With the Silver Surfer world premiere at Volx/Margareten, the studio of the Volkstheater Wien has brought out an innovative theatrical experiment, in which the bracket between millenials and silver surfers finds its expression in all their contradictory and appropriate facets, without abandoning the critical attitude towards smart technology.
Barbara Pálffy / Volkstheater
Ganaele Langlois is Professor in Communication Studies at the York University. Her book Meaning in the Age of Social Media (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014) studies how the very concept of meaning is being reshaped in the light of human-computer interaction. Following Langlois, in the process of creation of meaning online, the human user is only «a component, but not the driving force of these systems». A social networking site (such as Facebook or Instagram) is based on a very complex software architecture, only partly activated by us and made by a sum of technical objects that possess their own agency and are able to influence, reshape, and bend to their will the human actors.
Digital Natives is a cooperation project by the Union des Théâtres de l’Europe (UTE) with the support of Creative Europe, that involves the Volkstheater Wien, Schauspiel Köln, the Hugarian Theatre of Cluj, the Comédie de Reims and the National Theatre of Northern Greece. At the end of March 2019, Vienna was animated by a two day-long series of conferences, talks and performances, all dedicated to exploring how twenty years of interactive Web technologies were able to determine a new way of looking at reality and living interconnected lives. Digital interaction can indeed be interpreted as an opportunity in digging new paths to creativity: but, if relationships seem to no longer have limits, how can we trace boundaries between a fake reality and a real fakeness?
Since the advent of anthropology, human sciences have come to terms with the importance of a specific context, a system of social conventions and common rituals that really defines the roots and the logic of a local community. The very concepts of “openness” and “closure” can be fully understood only by measuring how such conventions and rituals invite or refuse a negotiation with others coming from different cultures.
If, back in the days, the Internet was created as a powerful vehicle to exchange data and information, Web 2.0 – those platforms characterized by highly interactive functionalities – deeply changed the modes used by different communities to establish a dialogue. We are not only talking about a new order and pace in mingling social traditions, but also new languages and velocities able to reshape the basic forms of intergenerational communications.
This is the thematic core of Silver Surfer, a project by Volkstheater’s Youth Programme, directed by Constance Cauers and Malte Andritter, that had its world premiere Saturday 30 March at the Volx/Margareten in Vienna.
Five adults and six teenagers meet on the same theatrical stage to discuss their everyday life, building, layer by layer, a dense collective discourse around the “digital diet” of the present society.
The wide blank stage is surrounded by translucent curtains, a sort of open limbo between two generations. A sparse vegetation of black lecterns grows on the empty white space; each stand has a LED light that illuminates the faces when the actors in front talk. Between rapid accounts of conversations with mom and dad and quick dialogues through which the digital natives walk the first steps into a romantic affair, every line of this very rhythmic and sparkling text is addressed to the audience. This shows how disconnected we really are when engaged in virtual communication. “Online relationship”, “Digital daily routine”, “Digital assault” are some of the titles that break the text in several scenes; but there are also such terms as “Nude pictures”, “Porn”, “Darknet”, all related to “the dark side of the Internet”. The virtual world is always a mirror of the actual one, where an inattentive traveler can easily get lost.
In establishing virtual contacts with the outer social circle, a turning point may then be a solid education, a kind of knowledge that makes us cautious and curious towards how we can actually appear to the eyes of the others and how we can understand and gain control over new systems of power. In his model of “discourse analysis”, Michel Foucault used to look at language and practices as battlefield where one has to oppose resistance to a number of power structures. In Langlois’ opinion such war is nowadays fought through the creation and the negotiation of meaning: «Media transform the conditions within which we humans come to interpret, produce, and share meanings. At the same time, media can be harnessed by specific social forces to establish power formations». Social media are fundamentally based on the idea that an individual view of the world can recognize itself through the act of circulating information and thoughts, in a way which is no longer able to distinguish private from public content.
The moment when the world was divided into online and offline is buried in the past: the Italian media theorist Giovanni Boccia Artieri (University of Urbino) argues that «we are facing an accumulation of occasions in which individuals “play” with self-representation forms, thanks to the diffusion of reproduction and production technologies in daily life, from digital photo cameras to editing software». The resulting media forms are very close to the ones promoted by the mainstream media and such scenario is reinforced by a growing “disintermediation” (the removal of intermediaries in a supply chain), encountered both in the market and in the individual construct of reality.
In his speech at “Digital Hermits”, the first Digitization Conference in Cluj (read the report here), a very young Hungarian YouTuber, Tamás Trunk, was explaining how quickly a teenager can launch his/her own online career as an influencer, only by endorsing the right product at the right time. Because virtual communities are already prompt in getting engaged in a communal attitude to marketing and in sharing ideas.
And yet, Silver Surfer focuses on the controversial duplicity between virtual and actual presence, observing how certain natural dynamics of interaction are today encapsulated in a form of “digital milieu”, where everyone has to prove his or her level of connection, to be a witness of a shifting era.
The performance is a generous mix of vivacity and humor, the group of teenagers is very efficient in presenting different approaches to storytelling. Singing songs live, the actors display a polished body language and an accurate work on facial expressions that become extremely important in the way they convey and share with the spectator what such a fluvial text couldn’t, especially when the choir speaks in unison, winking at a Brecht’s “didactic drama” and, at the same time, portraying the effects of fixed thought.
One-to-one relations (between natives or with the «instaGrans») can in fact serve as a good model for political involvement, which is another big “black hole” of the proliferating digital culture(s): the absence of a real political attitude, the end of what Jürgen Habermas called “communicative action”. This has historically founded on language and the possibility of formulating an argumentation, as deliberate as possible but able to be contested and discredited.
To gain back what Habermas had envisioned, the German philosopher Byung-Chul Han proposes a quest for an alternative, a “digital rationality” that comes from a crucial understanding: the “digital swarm” is not a mass, rather an aggregate of individual egos not organized in a political construct.
As inhabitants of different areas of the same gigantic virtual community, our very imagery is being replaced with a wall full of slogans and tags, a semantic formula that gives the users the impression of being part of the same family of friends and followers, consuming and sharing the very same symbolic forms, productive «networked publics» (Diana Boyd) who recognize themselves in the same hidden processes.
While the social media establish themselves as the most advanced meaning machines, where a users’ response can discipline, at the same time, the accurateness of advertising and the relevance of the news, we are all “texting”, “snapchatting”, “skypeing”, “instagramming”, “posting”, “twitting”. All terms that had no sense less than a couple of decades ago and that now are included in every dictionary, at least in our glittering Western world. What is interesting about Silver Surfer is the way its energy sets the stage for a new kind of critique, because a clear division between “apocalyptic” and “integrated” (as Umberto Eco had defined two attitudes towards new technologies) is no longer there.
Thus, the idea of inviting members from Veterans and Generation Z to handle the same vocabulary and together funding a common language is an intelligent getaway to gain knowledge by living a real-time experience.
«What’s missing again at the moment that is has to be now?» is the last sentence of a long “teen choir”. Facebook suggests us to re-post a “memory” of a time when we were still married or still pregnant with our first daughter, and suddenly the past becomes a revenant; the future appears under the mask of “events” to be interested in. Between
posts, video-chats, virtual encounters and Instagram stories that 24 hours later are gone, this is the scenario: a condition where present is the only tense. At the end of the day, theatre is one of the last occasions to gather in the same room, among unknown people, and together occupy a time and a space which are owned and negotiated by an actual community. The same that, in the bar of the Volx/Margareten, has shared a drink and toasted to the wonderful effort of this bunch of members from a generation of joyful knowledge.
The riddle of the International Theatre Festival is its name: Interferences. This year’s sixth edition of the biennial tournament for collective representations in Cluj-Napoca, which has been held every two years since 2008, deals with the theme of war. From the 22nd to the 30th November 2018, 16 ensembles from 13 countries met in Transylvania, a cultural interface below the Carpathian Arc since antiquity.
The cultural diversity and multilingualism can be felt at every corner of the city. It is home to various spaces of experience of distant pasts, which in their linguistic expression meets daily today in Hungarian, Romanian and sometimes also in German. The memorial culture of the city with the name triangle amazes and wonders visitors at the everyday overlays, because besides Cluj-Napoca there are also the names Kolozsvár and Klausenburg. Thus, the two city centres, a Hungarian and a Romanian one, are connected with each other by a street on which the sculpture of a myth was placed. It is the myth of the founding history of Rome – a she-wolf feeding Romulus and Remus on a marble-covered pedestal with a portrait of Trajan, including the inscription: Alla Citta di Cluj – Roma Madre – MCMXXI. The visitor is confronted with the question: Is this still young memorial a reminiscence of 1921, staging Rome as a matrilineal origin for the city of Cluj-Napoca?
Time is Convention
Anyone looking at the sculpture from outside looks for words to understand what kind of représentation finds expression here. Judging by everyday political standards, it may well have been the intention to create sense to meet the challenges after the turn of 1989/1992. However, a link to the founding myths of the nation-building process after Romania’s founding one hundred years ago as a result of the Versailles peace negotiations has attracted too much social attention. Festival director Gábor Tompa, at the opening of the festival in the Hungarian theatre of Cluj-Napoca, gives a hint, both in his address in the festival catalogue and in his personal address: the theme of the festival is war. One hundred years has passed since the end of the First World War, whose peace negotiations dramatically and tragically rearranged the map of Europe. At the same time, however, they also prolonged warlike conflicts indefinitely until today. – In his speech, he directly asks the audience the question: “How can we remember war in ways other than that losers remember losers? – Because in a war there are no winners,” says Tompa.
From the spectator’s point of view, his suggestion makes the facets of the festival programme comprehensible much more quickly. The chosen season in the festival calendar is the time of mental heaviness in Europe. Autumn passes into winter and the days become shorter. And outside only fog circulates. Theatre as a festival needs such a stable sacred anchor, which is realized anew in a periodic sequence depending on the season. The word “sacred” floats in my mind as I listen attentively to Tompa’s words in the auditorium as I leaf through the catalogue, creating a certain sense of time and space. I’m thinking of Henri Hubert’s essay on La représentation du temps dans la religion et la magie from 1904, read recently on my tablet. Those who get involved with the festival events leave the normal space-time feeling of everyday life. The sacred space-time order captures a feeling of infinity and immutability. Such a joint search for sense in theatre competes with the fixed memorial culture, which wants to present stability as an unchangeable factor for everyday life as obligatory; a demand that is strived for in everyday life, but rarely fulfilled.
The theatre, which has its origins in magic, has its own unfixed foundation of meaning. It is an open project, a search for sense. If one accepts the festival from the spectator’s point of view, one agrees with sacred space-time. Tompa’s choice of pieces is based on this common search for meaning under the sign of a shared time and a shared space when he writes in his address in the festival catalogue: With the various types of war, it is important to speak of a theatre of fright. The terrible trauma caused by violence would call for an individual and collective “exorcism”. The fixed point of the search for meaning lies in the similarity between war and theatre, for they are the reciprocal actions of two opposing forces.
Scrape That Fiddle More Darkly
The selection of the various directorial manuscripts from different theatre families in Europe stands for the side of change, self-assessment and collective responsibility. Absorbing a few festival days demands a higher level of attention from visitors from outside and the admission that they can’t see everything. The simultaneous presence of English, French, Romanian and Hungarian, the languages of the guest performances, such as German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Lithuanian, Polish, Russian and Serbian, will also be added. There is a closely timed main programme in the main hall and in the studio. There is a supporting programme in the Tiff House, in the Tranzit House, in the Paintbrush Factory and in the Quadro Gallery. There are exhibitions and concerts. And for the first time there was a technical interference called Digital Hermits. This conference at the Tranzit House tried to explore the use of digital technologies and their impact on the coexistence of people in our world. A contribution on war that takes into account the consequences of the Cold War, when the Internet was born, to ensure communication between entities after a nuclear fallout. The focus was on user interfaces – also known as new media – and their own spaces of experience in and with time and space. It was seen as problematic that the dialogue between the generations leads to a dichotomy between the group of people who live completely without digital technologies and the group who no longer want to shape life without them. The connection of passions to the filter bubbles and echo chambers of the digital world unfortunately failed to materialize.
One question that has always been virulent for the two-thousand-year history of theatre is: How do people behave in war? – In a collapse crisis, laughter and crying not only alternate, they can also occur simultaneously. One person’s suffering is the other’s only short joy until the perspectives change and the persecutor becomes the persecuted. Milo Raus shows with his work Compassion. The history of the machine gun an impressice teichoscopy, to which the dramatic elements of the Greek tragedy are reduced. In it, this change of perspective is performed in a loop. The actress Ursina Lardi from the ensemble of the Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz in Berlin plays herself as a young development aid worker in Rwanda, where she witnessed the Hutu genocide of the Tutsi. Later she finds out that the person she helped became the perpetrator. The Belgian actress Consolate Sipérus also plays herself. As a baby, she was adopted by a Belgian couple. More than the country of origin, Rwanda, and the catalogue with the baby faces that can be chosen for adoption are not known to her. From the viewer’s point of view, this enormous amount of social facts is hardly bearable. And Lardi tells of the theatres of war with impressive power of speech and physical presence, as if she has just observed this quantity of irrational actions.
By représentation, Hubert means exactly this sacred time level. Just as in the auditorium on my tablet I work on an over one-hundred-year-old text in order to pursue questions of understanding about what is happening on stage, Lardi and Sipérus create a public sphere. Not just a public speech act, that is, one that can be seen by everyone, is performed here, at the same time an understanding of the event opens up for other group members who are not directly involved in the actual action. Now and here we take an insight into the events that took place on another continent in 1994. This is the quality of the festival, with which the riddle of the name, Interferences, is solved: it is the coincidence of all time levels in the concept of humanity. The model upheld in Europe since the Renaissance breaks itself in the face of the horrors of precisely this persistent humanity, no matter what skin colour, language, culture or religion it claims to be right and good for itself. The Greek drama models serve this quality.
Anna Badora of the Volkstheater Wien (Vienna Volkstheater) has created a link between antique representational drama and post-dramatic attempts to cope with the European present in Renaissance style. She stages an Iphigenia in Aulis by Euripides in the format of the Golden Ratio, in which Iphigenia is actually sacrificed at the end of the first part, with which the tragedy of Euripides, which for us has only been handed down as a fragment, ends. The war really begins with Badora. While the battle rages, we spectators go to the toilet or to the fresh air. From the two thousand years in the past we fall in the second part into the Syrian present. Here, Stefano Massini’s text Occident Express serves as the basis for a play for the same actors who are now making their way to Europe as civil society from the war zones in Iraq and Syria.
It is said that waves of crisis lead to a learning process. Gabor Tompa shows in his in-house production of William Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice that limits are inherent in this learning process. The fact that both actors, Gábor Viola and Zsolt Bogdán, can play both the role of Antonio and that of Shylock as respective double casts bears witness to the deep empathy for the characters that is necessary to represent sacrificial rituals. Antonio, whose sadness at the beginning may not be revealed to the audience until the end of the piece – at the beginning it is not business or love that causes his suffering – it is the quotations of the milieus and their internal morals made by Tompa in his soundscape installation, who let Antonio be as obviously sad as the mirror-inverted despair of Shylock, whose sacrifice in the end – analogous to Iphigenia’s sacrifice – is needed to restore that very internal morality after the group has gone through a common crisis. Antonio, like his alter ego Agamemnon (father of Iphigenia and at the same time commander who sacrifices his daughter), represents in this sense the permanent depression of a human being who knows that it always seeks the good, but at the same time always creates the bad.
Fatherland
The “exorcism” of the festival, which was the goal, took on a physically concrete form collectively and practically with the staging Vaterland in the choreography of Csaba Horváth and the stage design of Csaba Antal. The Forte Company presents text elements from Thomas Bernhard’s The Italians in a rhythmic and sporty sequence of scenes that gesturally play the timbres of Bernhard’s model. Bernhard, who in his will still wanted to ensure that no text, neither novel nor stage text, narrative or poem, would ever appear in Austria, was at war with the eccentric way of his fellow countrymen dealing with National Socialist traditions. The staging succeeds in allowing Bernhard to be regarded as the master of plastic surgery of collective passions that are unquestioned in memorial culture or devotional objects. Whether a geographical space is assigned a patrilineal or matrilineal original character is actually uninteresting.
In this way, the festival creates a concrete link to the themes of past years. Whereas in 2014, for example, it was still necessary to report on the stories of the body, this year the theme of war captures the passions in a way that suggests new approaches to the content of security policy measures, which are often difficult to understand in everyday life. The experiment on the formal side, such as Milo Rau’s, of exclusively exhibiting teichoscopy, seems all too minimalistic. We do not know whether the actress Ursina Lardi was really in Rwanda and whether Consolate Sipérius was really adopted. Here documentary theatre finds its limits in fictionality and has to compete with the classics, the timelessly valid dramas since antiquity. Mere indignation could perhaps have been problematized in connection with the digital filter bubbles and their echo chambers. But then the acting characters, whose limitations and weaknesses in Euripides or Shakespeare were excellently designed and presented in their plot constraints and intentions, would also have had to have been worked out more precisely in Milo Rau’s work. There are no spaces free of experience, even if the widespread contemporary encapsulation à la New Media and the generation conflicts associated with it might suggest it.
When a ship is rescued, the SOS emergency call is made beforehand and the bodies are rescued. The Interferences International Theatre Festival reminds us that the purpose of the SOS emergency call is to save souls. It demands their participation, a shared attention. An encapsulation in technical terms or as usual in analogue memorial culture, on the other hand, leads to isolation with fixed values of collective internal morals and their obligatory victims. By rejecting such tendencies of isolation, the theatre festival leads the search for meaning and sense in Cluj-Napoca.
Contrary to what the sculpture of the founding myth of the city of Rome and its staged history of origin suggests for Cluj-Napoca, the theatre has understood the origo principle. Florence Dupont can read about this punch line on the “monument” to Romulus and Remus: Rome – city without origin. The punchline is: there is no origin. There is only one diversity in mutual respect and recognition. This is what the origo principle stands for. Interferences is also the name for an unfinished search for sense. Theatre is and remains an open project, both in terms of content and form.
Published on 21 January 2019 (Article originally written in German)
When juxtaposed with the theatre systems of Eastern European countries at the UTE Conference on Theatre Structures in Belgrade, Austria’s situation seems nothing short of luxurious. In every way. Andrea Ruis of the Arts and Culture Division of the Federal Chancellery of Austria and Anna Badora, artistic director of the Volkstheater in Vienna, gave in-depth talks that powerfully demonstrated the significance and prosperity of theatre in Austria.
6.09 million tickets were sold in more than 15,000 performances in the 2014/2015 season. With just over eight and a half million inhabitants, this is categorical evidence of Austria’s obsession with theatre. The great theatres of Vienna sold more than 3.8 million tickets, with a population of just 1.8 million inhabitants. In 2016, the Republic of Austria gave an impressive 200 million euros in funding to its theatres. With such a high level of the Austrian “theatrical obsession,” it’s no wonder the federal government passed legislation (Kunstförderungsgesetz) in 1988, making it mandatory to perpetually fund the arts.
It’s no surprise that Austria incorporates all forms of theatres in their national repertoire; everything from the internationally renowned National Theatre to countless cabarets, intimate cellar theatres along with an array of independent artist performances occurring on professional or impromptu stages. With regards to the large theatre institutions, there are state, regional, municipal and private theatres; which together employ more than 5,000 actors, directors and administrative staff that work almost year-round to put on acclaimed works. The terms for these different theatrical institutions have developed historically, and allude to the financial structure behind them.
State theatres evolved from the former Austro-Hungarian Imperial and Royal Court Theatres (k.u.k. Hoftheater). Some of the most recognized names in this imperial branch of theatre include the world-renowned Wiener Staatsoper, the Volksoper, and the Burgtheater, which is the second oldest straight theatre in Europe. In 1999, the Austrian parliament passed the Federal Theatres Organisation Act (Bundestheaterorganisationsgesetz), which required state theatres to be removed from the federal administration. Thus resulting in the creation of the Bundestheater-Holding company (Federal Theatres Holding).
The Bundestheater-Holding group is owned by the Republic of Austria. Its purpose is to facilitate the contact between its four subsidiaries and political players in the cultural field, the business community and the public. The holding company is furthermore responsible for strategic management and operations of its subsidiaries. This includes everything from financial and legal support to contract handling and upkeep of the historical theatre buildings. In addition to three independent theatres (Wiener Staatsoper, Volksoper, Burgtheater; all of them are in Vienna), the Bundestheater Holding also incorporates an association called “ART FOR ART,” which provides creative shops and ticketing, building management and IT services. With a budget of 246.2 Million euros and 2,400 employees, the Bundestheater-Holding is the largest theatre corporation in the world. Its three member theatres attract an impressive 1.3 million spectators every year. Lending such comprehensive support in business management to its subsidiaries, the Bundestheater-Holding allows its theatres to focus on the core of their work: creating high-quality theatre productions.
The second category of theatres includes regional and municipal theatres, which are the main stages in the federal states and its cities, respectively. Federal states also have holding companies, such as the Vereinigte Bühnen in Vienna (Vienna is not only the capital but a federal state of its own), which is composed of the Theater an der Wien, the Ronacher and the Raimund Theater. These three theatres primarily offer different forms of musical theatre in its three venues of 1070, 1040, and 1255 seats. With a combined 644 performances each year, the Vereinigte Bühnen reaches a sizeable audience of musical lovers. In the Styrian province, which is home to Austria’s second largest city, Graz, the Theater Holding Steiermark unites the opera house (including the ballet), the municipal theatre and the children’s theatre and is financed at 50% by the state and at 50% by the city.
Eight out of the nine federal states have a regional or municipal theatre, most of which are former court theaters and date back to the 18th and 19th century. (Court theatres used to be funded and managed by the court, as opposed to the people’s theatres, which were privately funded and publicly accessible). More often than not they are so-called “multi-branch” theatres, which usually comprise opera, drama, ballet and children’s theatre. They are primarily financed by the federal state and the municipality. These theatres are part of the Society of Theatres of the Austrian Federal States and Municipalities. Its purpose is to protect the interests of its members, as well as to propose how to divide federal government funding of 18.7 million euros over the course of five years. Its members, which include the Salzburger Landestheater, the Oper Graz, the Tiroler Landestheater and the Stadttheater Klagenfurt, offer more than 3,000 performances a year to over one million spectators. Altogether, these theatres receive collective subsidies of 136 million euros.
In the 19th century, municipal theatres were flourishing and inspired the architects Fellner & Helmer to specialise in representative buildings for municipal theatres, which they erected in various cities across Central and Eastern Europe. In Austria alone, they designed the opera house in Graz, the Landestheater Salzburg, the Stadttheater Baden bei Wien, the Stadttheater Klagenfurt, the Akadmietheater (part of the Burgtheater), the Konzerthaus, the Ronacher, and the Volkstheater in Vienna. With countless enthusiastic audience members flocked in front of these architectural landmarks each night, municipal theatres prove to be the central theatrical institutions in Austria’s state capitals to this day.
In a third category, there are the so-called private theatres, such as the Volkstheater, the Theater in der Josefstadt and the Theater der Jugend. They collectively show more than 1,500 performances a year for more than 600,000 spectators. Broadly speaking, the Volkstheater offers more innovative approaches to critical spectators, while the Theater in der Josefstadt caters to a more conservative and traditional audience. Meanwhile, the Theater der Jugend shows ambitious literature for young people.
The private theatres were originally founded by benefactors as an antithesis to the court theatre. However, today their money no longer comes from benefactors but from the municipality and the federal government (approximately 60% and 40%, respectively), which effectively renders the term ‘private theatre’ obsolete in Austria. From a legal perspective, private theatres have been transformed from private corporate entities into foundations, associations, or limited liability companies.
Since, the majority of funding for these theatres comes from the federal government and the municipality, the artistic directors are nominated by the culture secretary (as of 18 December 2017 it’s Gernot Blümel) and the city councillor for cultural affairs (currently Andreas Mailath-Pokorny). One of the major benefits of having these private theatres registered as limited liability companies is that legally the artistic and managing directors are entitled to make independent decisions. That means they can manage their budget completely freely; they can autonomously hire and fire their staff; and they have complete control over their programme. As Anna Badora, Artistic Director of the Volkstheater in Vienna stated, “I may be as bold as to argue that this is the best system for theatres in the world.” Indeed, the Volkstheater’s strong financial position coupled with vast managerial and artistic independence is a privilege most theatres in the world would envy her for.
However, the seemingly ideal Austrian theatre system comes with understated flaws. Subsidies for theatre institutions remain the same every year, while fixed costs, such as rent, electricity or fees and salaries increase every year. Each theatre has to cover this gap in costs with money from their own pocket, usually through ticket sales. However, most of them already reach a high percentage of seats sold. Theatres therefore have to come up with new ways of generating money—which can easily become a distraction from fulfilling their original purpose.
Furthermore, the competition amongst theatres is big, especially in the capital, and relations amongst each other as well as with political stake holders need to be carefully handled. Subtle ambiguity and scheming happen of course, like anywhere else, inhibiting the productivity of theatre managers.
From an employee perspective, theatre contracts, although decent by international standards, are still not perfect. Actors, especially young ones, have little protection, much less so than stagehands, for example. It is customary that a change in directorship goes hand in hand with an exchange of the permanent acting company, thus customarily leaving actors, especially newcomers, without a job whenever a new artistic director takes over. Nonetheless, even young actors have a privileged situation in Austria in comparison to a lot of the countries present at the conference in Belgrade, where a permanent contract for an actor is something you can only dream of.
Back to Austria’s theatres, though. Vienna is, of course, the centre of the country’s diverse and compact theatre landscape. The capital’s culture budget amounts to 84 million euros, which far exceeds the rest of the federal states. Its main three theatres alone attract more than 1.3 million people a year. Vienna has more than 90 theatres, and an estimated 500 independent groups. It is home to the most prestigious theatres of the country and has multiple theatres that are considered as highly significant.
Often simply referred to as “Die Burg” (the fortress), the Burgtheater is a unique cultural phenomenon. Under the reign of Josef II, the theatre world in Vienna flourished, and he declared the Burgtheater “the German National Theatre”. Instead of opera and ballet, drama was now put into the limelight, with a particular emphasis on European literature. Austria’s National Theatre is the largest and one of the most prestigious theatres in the German theatre realm: the Burgtheater employs approximately 550 people, 74 of which are permanent actors. Additionally it regularly hires 38 guest actors. For comparative purposes, Germany’s largest theatre—the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg—has 47 permanent actors, and approximately half the Burgtheater’s budget.
Based on the sheer volume of its permanent actors and budget, the Burgtheater has the largest company and is the most well-funded theatre in the world. Specifically, this goliath received more than 46 million euros in public funding during the 2015 season. It attracts the highest number of spectators in continental Europe with an average of 850 performances a year on four different stages (one of these stages is located in a different theatre building altogether). After the Comédie Française, it is the second oldest straight theatre in Europe, and the largest German speaking one. Currently, Karin Bergmann is the artistic director of the Burgtheater, and will be followed by Martin Kušej in 2019.
Stefan Bachmann, Andrea Breth, Roland Schimmelpfennig and Michael Thalheimer are just a few of the renowned directors to work at the Burgtheater in the past. Paula Wessely, Attila Hörbiger, Josef Meinrad and Paul Hörbiger were once some of the most famous names to perform at the Burgtheater. Today, Kirsten Dene, Maria Happel, Klaus Maria Brandauer, or Peter Simonischek must be mentioned when talking about the prominent cast members of the “Burg”. The highest honour for an actor in the Austrian theatre world is to be called a “Burgschauspieler,” which solely connotes that you are a permanent actor at the Burgtheater. In fact, Thomas Bernhard dedicated one of his most famous novels, “Woodcutters”, to the high social status of the “Burgschauspieler.”
Demand to see the creme de la creme of Austrian theatre live on stage is extremely high, and there’s usually a long line meandering from the ticket booth inside all the way to the front of the building. While the Burgtheater was once only frequented by the aristocracy, today it is accessible to anyone, with a standing ticket as cheap as €3,50.
Historically, the Volkstheater was founded with the mission of being the exact opposite of the Burgtheater. Its name says it all: “People’s Theatre.” Its purpose, as Mrs. Badora pointed out during the UTE conference in Belgrade, “is to bring theatre to the people on its main stage as well as on its second stage and its 19 theatres in the districts.” The Volkstheater includes both entertainment in its repertory but also, and most importantly, innovative theatre that is critical of socio-political developments.
Complementing the two biggest straight theatres in Vienna, there are other important institutions that also need to be briefly considered. These theatres offer different content and aesthetics than the Burgtheater or the Volkstheater, and partially cater to a different audience altogether. The Theater in der Josefstadt, which opened in 1788, is the oldest theatre in Vienna to continuously have been in use since its founding. Its focus, as suggested earlier, is on classical Austrian theatre, including contemporary literature and light comedy. Since 2006, Herbert Föttinger has been the theatre’s artistic director.
The Theater der Jugend, with Thomas Birkmeir as its artistic director, has two stages, the Theater im Zentrum and the Renaissancetheater. It mainly produces plays for children and adolescents, although the theatre has also had the responsibility of generating audiences for other theatres.
Next to theatres that have a greater focus on music theatre (Theater an der Wien, Ronacher, Raimundtheater), there are numerous other theatres in Vienna, such as the Schauspielhaus Wien and the Rabenhof Theater, to only name two famous ones. Smaller stages are also very frequented by Austrian theatre goers. One of the most highly respected and popular types is the socio-politically charged cabaret genre. The most renowned stage is the Kabarett Simpl, the only cabaret that dates back to the 19th century that is still open today.
The diversity of Austria’s theatrical institutions delineated here demonstrates the high demand of Austria’s adept theatre audience that enjoys this art form in all its shapes and sizes. Accordingly, Austrians also highly value their independent theatre scene. Since the 1990s, the scene has boomed tremendously, especially due to the high influx of students of theatre who opt to stay in Austria after graduation. Even though Austria’s most prestigious drama school, the Reinhardt Seminar, only accepts 3-12 students a year, there are still more than 50 drama and music schools which attract a high number of students from abroad. The (former) students’ sundry backgrounds, and their offbeat and experimental approaches, make the independent scene particularly attractive to the versed spectator.
Federal and municipal funding for the independent scene occurs in three ways: for a year-long programme, a specific project, or for production exchanges or tours abroad. An external advisory committee is made up of individuals who are active in the arts. The committee members’ primary responsibility is to select viable applicants from the countless proposals that come in every year. This committee studies all incoming applications based on a series of rigid criteria (quality, target audience, innovation, new forms of theatrical creation, realistic budgeting, etc.), reaching an exclusive selection of productions and projects that promise the highest artistic quality and greatest sustainability. In 2016, these projects were funded with approximately 1.5 million euros. Roughly 400,000 euros were used for fourteen one-year long projects and a little over one million euros was awarded to 120 troupes. Additionally, the city of Vienna funded the independent scene with four million euros.
Vienna offers “co-production locations” to the independent scene, which are companies that don’t produce themselves but offer their premises to independent artists. The most famous of these are the Tanzquartier, the brut, and the Dschungel Wien (the latter being for children’s theatre). While rehearsals often last up to six weeks, “productions frequently aren’t performed more than two or three times”, Ms. Ruis lamented at the conference in Belgrade. This is why the federal government encourages independent artists to take their shows abroad, as tours can be granted additional funding.
Many independent artists are members of the IGFT, the League of Independent Artists, which was founded in 1989. It’s a network of more than 1,600 independent theatre and dance artists that lobbies for the independent scene. The IGFT covers cultural politics, consulting, public relations, infrastructure, networking, and controlling of funding and social security allowances, as well as general services to independent theatre makers (taxes, dues, etc.) The league receives funding of 300,000 euros from the federal government.
For theatre institutions, funding is tied to the principle of subsidiarity. That is to say that a theatre must receive subsidies from the municipality and the state in order to receive funding from the federal government. This way of financing is firmly established in the federal constitution, and aims at decentralizing accountability and forwarding it to those closest to the subsidized institution. Therefore, the main responsibility when it comes to theatres lies with the state and/or the city, and only to a lesser extent with the federal government; thus granting more freedom to the local institutions themselves. The subsidies for state theatres, regional and municipal theatres, the Vereinigte Bühnen Wien and the Viennese private theatres amounted to around 353 million euros in the 2014/2015 season.
To receive federal funding, theatres are held accountable for their cultural responsibility. Tending to classics of the German language and of international theatre as well as fostering contemporary and innovative art are amongst their core responsibilities. Furthermore, the Federal Theatres Organisation Act states that theatres should embrace artistically risque productions; should transmit art and theatre to the young generation; should enable a vast variety of people to have access to theatre; should fight for international collaboration; should be active year-round; and should offer a repertoire based on having a permanent company of actors.
This funding system does go a long way, as Austria proves to have a high number of new openings each season: the Burgtheater alone started the season with a programmed 21 premieres on top of its regular repertoire, the Volkstheater will have 18 opening nights, the Schauspielhaus Graz 22, the Stadttheater Klagenfurt 10 and the youth theatre of Graz, Next Liberty, has 15 scheduled. This productive output is definitely only possible thanks to the theatres’ high and effective public funding.
Each year, the theatres’ efforts are rewarded when their artistic contributions and creative minds are nominated for a “Nestroy”—the Austrian theatre prize. Inspired by the Parisian theatre award “Molière”, the “Nestroy” aims at highlighting Austria’s artistic ability by honouring the most creative and innovative actors, directors and playwrights as well as in-house productions by festivals.
Festival season is what makes the culture-loving Austrian survive the summer, when theatres are generally on a break. That’s why the majority of festivals take place in the spring and summer. With Austria being a country known for its rich musical tradition as well, a lot of these festivals combine the disciplines of music and theatre, such as the world-renowned Salzburger Festspiele.
Salzburg almost triples its population during the six weeks of its festival, which takes place every year in July and August. More than 250,000 people flock to the city to see the legendary festival’s 200 events. Max Reinhardt and Hugo von Hofmannsthal are the forefathers of what is today considered one of the world’s most relevant festivals for music and contemporary art. At its foundation in 1920, Reinhardt and Hofmannsthal envisioned a festival that would contrast the renowned Bayreuth festival by not only celebrating one single artist, but a myriad of artists from opera, orchestra music and drama. Ever since the very first edition of the Salzburger Festspiele, the festival has opened with its flagship production: Hofmannsthal’s “Everyman”. Today, the festival’s artistic direction is in the hands of Markus Hinterhäuser.
Since 1946, the Bregenzer Festspiele, artistically directed by Elisabeth Sobotka, has offered a vast variety of productions in five venues, drawing in roughly 200,000 people every year in July and August. It is most famous for its floating stage on Lake Constance, where a larger-than-life set that usually incorporates the lake in one way or another is the backdrop for a massive operatic undertaking. Drama performances and concerts are held in nearby venues.
Another highlight of the festival season is the Wiener Festwochen festival, which attracts 180,000 people with a programme of drama, opera and dance during the course of five weeks in May and June. Tomas Zierhofer-Kin, artistic director of the festival, and his team manage around 175 performances and 70 concerts each year.
Innovation is the first concept that comes to mind when thinking of the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, whose artistic direction is in the hands of Gerfried Stocker. The festival is at the interface between art, technology and society. It is one of the world’s most important media art festivals that attracts around 35,000 visitors each year.
The steirischer herbst is another internationally acclaimed festival for contemporary art. Founded in 1968, the festival brings together all forms of art, from theatre to visual arts, film, literature, dance, music, architecture, performance and new media. The programme of the steirischer herbst exclusively shows original works, world premieres and commissioned works. Since 2006, Veronica Kaup-Hasler has managed this renowned festival, but will pass the baton to Ekaterina Degot next year.
Other relevant but smaller festivals include La Strada (street art festival in Graz), ImPuls Tanz (Vienna’s prestigious dance festival), the Festspiele Reichenau, Sommerszene Salzburg, SCHÄXPIR and spleen*graz (the international theatre festivals for children and youth theatre in Linz and Graz). The list of festivals goes on and on. What would otherwise be a theatrical dry spell in the summer turns into a sea of artistic events to quench Austrians’ thirst for theatre.
Since the Baroque age, and in particular since the era of Joseph II, theatre has been a central cultural institution in Austria. But it’s the combination of tremendous respect for this art form as well as a happy financial position that allows for the continued prosperity of Austria’s creatively (and otherwise) rich theatre landscape—a privileged situation that everybody at the Conference on Theatre Structures seemed to long for. That became blatantly obvious when Alexandru Darie of the Bulandra Theatre in Romania asked, “Can we all move to Austria?”
Published on 5 January 2018 (Article originally written in English)
A library or a supermarket? If one wished to come up with a successful metaphor for Europe at this turning point of its history, which would be the most accurate one?
From left to right: Vlad Troitzkyi (Ukraine), Ioanna Petrisi (Greece), Meera Jamal (Pakistan), Monika Mokre (Austria) and Corinna Milborn (moderator)
When people from different countries sit around a table in order to exchange opinions regarding “Democracy in a Migration Society” – this being the topic of the meeting organized by the Union des Théâtres de l’Europe on Sunday, January 15th, at the Volkstheater in Vienna – several questions are raised and this is one of them.
This issue is barely discussed, although it is extremely topical and will continue to be. But it also happens to be “quite provocative”, as initially described by Ioanna Petritsi, a representative of the ARSIS non-governmental organization and the National Theatre of Northern Greece.
“For the time being, to talk about democracy is a distant dream in the immigrant society”, she added. The image of tents buried in snow on the Greek islands was so recent that the discussion could only start with the country that has been asked to cope with a big part of the problem.
“Under the so-called ‘emergency situation’, all aspects of democracy, including representation, are sacrificed. The immigrants are treated as powerless individuals who have no control of their own lives and make no plans whatsoever. Indicative of this situation is the fact that those asking for political asylum have limited access to their legal documents, if they have any access at all. The country they are taken to is decided about without their knowledge and they usually are the very last to find out where they are going.”
But Ioanna also informs us that even in everyday life in the camps, where she has worked, “every single attempt of self-organization comes to nothing. Usually it is the most powerful one who dominates.”
Meera Jamal has lived and worked in Germany since 2008. She had to abandon her country, Pakistan, where she had been working as a journalist. Being sensitized on human rights as well as openly being an atheist, she would often be threatened back home. But initially she was similarly treated by her fellow countrymen who had also fled to Europe. They would ask her how she could say she was an atheist, and if she wasn’t aware of the consequences for those who leave Islam.
As she pointed out, however, fear lies on both sides, and she goes on to share a story she has included in one of her articles. Her neighbour in Wiesbaden was horrified when she hung a black piece of cloth in her garden in order to keep the insects away. They warned her to remove “this black Islamic flag”.
She went on to say that both sides have rights that ought to be equal for everyone, and that immigrants are often unaware of the laws concerning women and children’s rights. This is where the theatre could offer some help, being an accessible source of information and education.
Monika Mokre, a political scientist, pointed out that fundamental human rights such as housing, food or access to education and work, immigrant or not, ought to be safeguarded. She explained how there are people who have already been living in Austria for ten years and still can’t vote. Asylum seekers have no rights at all and they can’t even call the police. This is a challenge and the effort needs to last long. She says that this issue is much wider as it has to do with the kind of society we want to have.
A different perspective was presented by the Ukrainian artist Vlad Troitskyi, the artistic director of the independent Dakh theatre, who thinks countries who receive refugees such as Austria and Germany are eventually “at the mercy of the ones that they invite”.
“The immigrants often feel everyone owes them. Help, money, whatever. They adopt a childish behaviour and you cannot carry out a conversation with them. However, Europe itself has had a childish attitude. In the end no one makes any decision and no one takes responsibility. It is always someone else who ought to decide. As a result, populists make a comeback and opinions such as ‘all immigrants are evil’ and ‘we should close the borders’ become more and more popular. In my opinion, Europe is like a library suddenly invaded by a group of people; they are all refugees and the rest of us hesitate to say, ‘hey, this is a library’. Everyone can come in but only in order to read books. They can’t do anything they want. This ought to be emphasized. Certain things can or cannot be done inside a library. In this way, voices which no one takes seriously at first, like Hitler’s, Le Pen’s, Trump’s or Putin’s, become stronger and stronger, as they seem to suggest some solutions to the arising problems; and then the transformation takes place”, he concluded.
The director and activist Tina Leisch described the metaphor of the library as a “post-colonial ghost”, suggesting in return that of the supermarket. In her opinion, the former metaphor suggests that the library is just part of the culture immigrants come to vandalise. For her it makes more sense to compare Europe to a supermarket where there is enough food for everyone. Everyone can eat as much as they want. However, the people who have produced something suddenly want to keep it for themselves and say ‘we caught that fish; this fish is from our country’. It’s not true that anyone wants to burn down libraries. But everyone has the right to consume fair trade products, which is why democracy should not be considered exclusively in terms of borders or the economy, but in terms of human rights as well, according to Tina Leisch.
“I really believe Europe is a library. It hasn’t been merchandised; and the question is whether we want to sacrifice a civilization which has been alive for three thousand years”, replied Vlad Troitskyi. Monika Mokre objected and said that integration often goes both ways. So societies change; they also change due to immigration. She stresses that we need communication, and that there shouldn’t be any ghettos. Instead we should think about integration opportunities, and that we should allow new ideas to be placed among existing ones.
And where does art and theatre fit into this situation? According to Vlad Troitzkyi, the role art and the theatre play is huge, since “neither politicians nor the church have any effect any more. The artists’ role is to pose these annoying questions first to themselves and then to the public”, he said.
Tina Leisch also believes in the power of theatre, however she has started doubting its actual effect, since it is mainly meant for intellectuals and artists who are already aware of the issue. In Vienna, which is a city that has an immigration background, 40-50% of the people don’t go to the theatre. How can we attract these people? The theatre ought to invite them and step out of the stage. But it also ought to incorporate opposite opinions, after having held a discussion.
Meera Jamal suggested that the best asset is to have the newly arrived immigrants trained in the existing rights of the country that provides shelter. Ioanna Petritsi showed us a new aspect too: theatre games thanks to which the children of the camp were able to express themselves, and which also enabled the detection of child abuse, so that steps were taken against it.
Eventually everyone agreed that there are no easy answers, just many questions that should be posed and discussed openly, as will be done in another panel in autumn at the University of Vienna, in a collaboration between the Schweigende Mehrheit and the Union des Théâtres de l’Europe.
Published on 1 February 2017 (Article originally written in Greek)
“/…/The legendary ping pong club is being restaged at mumok in order to reactivate Július Koller’s goal of transforming art and its institutions. Visitors are invited to play, exchange shots, opinions, and positions. In the light of our current crisis of democracy, Koller’s fair-play game seems all the more topical today.”
These are the last couple of sentences I read on one of the white walls of the 5th floor at Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien (MUMOK), overhearing the reverberating sound of the ping pong ball, echoing distinctively in the hall as a group of visitors is playing on one of the tables behind me. It feels like the fading away resonance of each ball is gently asking a question, taken up by the next one. The soft, but insistent rhythm of this respectful discussion sticks to my mind for the rest of the day. Then I leave the Museumquartier, cross the slightly slippery, frosted street and enter into Volkstheater, where the Democracy in a Migration Society roundtable is to take place.
While the participants are getting seated and some of the chairs on the stage of the Rote Bar are producing cracking noises, I am still thinking about Július Koller. About his artistic presence; his boldness in transforming himself into an object of art; his fine irony; his healthy connection to the current socio-political context and its various layers; his ability to preserve his personal navigation system, despite the abrupt changes he witnesses. Born in former Czechoslovakia in 1939 and died in Slovakia in 2007, he is among the most influential conceptual artists of the epoch. He lived and created in both a Europe that was disunited by the Iron Curtain and in a Europe that was united by the European Union. But, in an impressive manner, he managed to preserve his artistic neutrality and the needed critical distance so that he could illustrate and comment on what happens in everyday life, the world of art and politics, and how they are intertwined. What is more, he also succeeded in accomplishing his attempts in reconfiguring the principles of the familiar, by inventing new, temporary “cultural situations”, as Koller calls them; and he does it through minimalistic, simple yet right at their place gestures.
The Ping-Pong Club exhibition, originally shown in Bratislava in 1970, and now restaged at the MUMOK as part of his retrospective, is just one example. In it, Koller invites the visitors to play table tennis in the exhibition room, to pass on to one another the ping pong ball based on the preexisting set of rules of the game, which guarantee its equality and fairness. And propels participants forward into consideration of rules as foundation of human relations on both interpersonal and collective level. This way Koller transforms the well-known sports game into a multifaceted metaphor; but also poses many questions. And, as his fans know, the question mark is not just an artistic tool in his work, but an important, aesthetic gesture that he employs repeatedly.
Interrogative sentences turn out to be the prevailing linguistic structure used by the participants at the roundtable – Meera Jamal, Ioanna Petrisi, Tina Leisch, Monika Mokre, Vlad Troitzkyi and the moderator Corinna Milborn – as well. Similarly to the ping pong game, the organizers have managed to ground the debate on a solid, preliminary agreed on basis. An essential component of which is the insistence not to look at the current situation of flux of people, coming to the continent from the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa, as a crisis, as a singular, extraordinary event, that needs to be resolved in order to return to normality. Instead, the perspective chosen is the one, admitting that this situation is already a fact, this is the new normality and that means that the attitude towards it, the approaches and the solutions should be long-term ones, and not at all momentary.
For the purposes of even more thorough and constructive rationalization of this notion, it might have been wise to consider some example of the extremely rich, migrant past of Europe. Stretching through the poles of history of domination on continents outside, through the specific relation inside between East and West, North and South, it all offers a significant amount of food for thought. Yet the span and the attention of the roundtable focus on the topic of the refugees as the most acute situation that needs urgent actions and strategies. Logically, at first the conversation sets off from the most painful and pressing issues that are often commented: protection of human rights, access to information, and mechanisms for their enforcement, conditions and services available at the detention centers, procedures for refugee status determination.
Slowly, but yet visibly, as opinions and examples are being exchanged over the table as ping pong balls, a second layer of questions begins to sneak in and gradually shifts the perspective. Inevitably issues of identity are touched upon and the topic of who/what is Europe and who “we” are is already here. It arises most clearly after Vlad Troitzkyi’s statement, in which he metaphorically describes Europe as a library, precious with its collection, in which everyone is welcome to choose a book and read it, yet all readers have to respect the rules and should not bring in any food or beverages, for instance. Tina Leisch in turn suggests that she prefers to think of Europe through the imagery of the supermarket, which is largely accessible for citizens from all walks of life and everyone can contribute to its shelves.
And there is a moment of silence; at least in my head; because a large, important space is opened up for the reconsideration of several major topics. Particularly crucial is the logic of the recognizing that we are already living in migration societies, and this is how it is going to be. To begin with, this is the starting point of the very old but still needed discussion on the access to culture, elitism, and the intellectual exclusivity of certain areas of the environment and given institutions. Then, this is the moment to initiate the talk on the role(s) of arts in society, especially in the frame of new pressing social issues. At this point of the debate the following questions also belong: what is the role of theatre, with its various forms and subgenres, in the different European societies today in relationship to their own members; what kind of hierarchies are present; and what could be the theatre’s involvement and contribution in the process of integration of newcomers; how should various theatrical structures react that are different in size, funding and presence, ranging from the state-run theatres and independent collectives to individual artists; where should the stage itself direct its gaze, and what artistic means are best to be employed? And, of course, many, many other questions, that are already anticipated, briefly mentioned or elaborated by the speakers at the round table.
Again, none of them is a new one, but the changed social reality has produced a new “cultural situation” which casts a different light; and offers fresh opportunities, but also requires us to negotiate the given rules of the game in order to be able to play it together. And not at all to claim that anything is a tabula rasa, but rather to be honest first of all with ourselves about the state of affairs, and then to attempt to openly state rules that, to the greatest extent possible, are fair and acceptable for everyone.
Furthermore, directly or implicitly, the roundtable offers some initial potential directions where to look for the answers. To begin with, I just simply slide my glance up and down the still preserved, though beginning to decay at certain spots, lavish interior of the 19th century building of Volkstheater, where we are. Its name literary means “people’s theatre”, and it is among the major institutions of its size and kind in Vienna. And this particular institution, together with Union of Theatres of Europe, a prominent trans–European network, is organizing such a roundtable for the second time. This in itself already is a clear telltale sign.
Other two possible directions to look for some hints are alluded by the two participants in the discussion, who are, among other things, theatre professionals. Vlad Troitzkyi emphasizes the fact that theatre is one of the spaces where challenging social questions can be posed due to its ability to profoundly unfold and express troubling social situations. And it does so exhaustively, including the aspects that often remain unsaid in personal and political talks. Tina Leisch builds up on that by confirming her belief in the effectiveness of theatre, but only when it succeeds to break out of the elitist, intellectual bubble, which many of the prominent theatrical institutions inhabit.
And a step further would be to look into the own practice of the two speakers quoted above. Troitzkyi is the artistic director of the prominent Ukrainian independent theatre DakhaBrakha. During the protests at Maidan Nezalezhnosti in 2013-2014 in Kiev, the troupe and its leader were actively involved in what was happening outside the theatre building. Tina Leisch is among the founders of “The Silent Majority” artistic collective, gathered to support refugees in their fight for rights and improvement of their conditions. Troitzkyi’s latest production is the opera-circus Babylon at Nova Opera Theatre in Kiev. It explores the tower as a metaphor and determining myth, while parodying the classical opera as a genre. Meanwhile Leisch is involved in rehearsals for the musical Traiskirchen (homonymous to the Austrian town, near which the biggest refugee camp in the country is set), for which actual refugees are casted.
This is how the ping pong ball stays in the air: on one and the same table, but also in between different tables, when needed. And among its tranquilizing, repetitive bounces, we can clearly hear the message that arts, and theatre in particular, can and may play many roles in today’s migration societies. There’s no cure-all, but questions need to be posed — again and again. And rules need to be negotiated.
Published on 31 January 2017 (Article originally written in Bulgarian)
Walking the streets of Vienna in late November is like hanging out in a huge jewellery store. With help from the Christmas lights, every angle shines brightly, shaping the frame for a peculiar “urban-crossing” experience in which the smallest detail seems to be meticulously staged.
Nevertheless, before becoming one of the most stimulating and vibrant European metropolises, Vienna used to be the centre of a wide empire, made unique by its stunning variety of cultures and ethnic melting pots. Though these very features played a role in the Empire’s fall, they indeed are the root of a surprising cultural heritage. Now, the Austrian capital dedicates a showcase to the Serbian part of such heritage that has remained active and relevant throughout the years in the Central European and, generally, in the Western culture.
The Serbian November was organized in the context of the Austrian-Serbian Culture Year, in synergy with the Volkstheater in Vienna that offers two venues, the main playhouse and the Volx/Margareten.
Branislav Nušić was the author of Pokojnik(The Deceased), a 1937 classic comedy staged by young director Igor Vuk Torbica, produced by Yugoslav Drama Theatre with members of the Faculty of Dramatic Arts of Belgrade, where Torbica graduated. Unexpectedly returning to life, the deceased mentioned in the title finds no celebrations but a feud between the members of the family that have portioned his heritage, stepping over every rule of respect. On the huge stage of Volkstheater, the visual and textual structure brings us back to a classical early nineteenth century imagery, though the events are set in the late 70s, casting a light on the communist approach to the creation of a selected ruling class during Tito’s dictatorship. A high pace and a very good synergy between the young actors bring the director to fill the texture of acting and stage movement with perhaps too many tricks that tickle the audience’s laughter, making the political subtext hard to follow, at least for the ones who must rely on the surtitles. The result is an entertaining piece of well-staged theatre that collects a warm round of applause, especially from the Serbian spectators. And yet, the tight bond between the translation and the non-Serbian speakers in order to understand the text prevented that part of the audience from fully comprehending the historical thread that is certainly crucial in such critical operations.
Another production of the Serbian November was able to complete three different, and equally important, tasks: To represent a credible excerpt of the current theatrical trends in Serbia; to give an example of the clash between former Yugoslav and Central European cultures; and to discuss the themes of immigration and integration, so pressing in international political discourse.
The new staging of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Katzelmacher (Žabar in Serbian) by Bojana Lazić flows like an impetuous river through such contemporary issues, lying on a simple yet ingenuous set design and a group of strong and wild performers. The small space, circumscribed by a perimeter of black curtains, is entirely filled with old-fashioned armchairs, lined up to stare back at the audience.
Marie, Helga, Rosy, Gunda, Paul and Eric are the quintessential of the exclusive gangs from the outskirts of a contemporary metropolis: dirty, lascivious, lazy and totally closed to any contact with the “others”. They work for a factory in rural Germany at the service of a scowling boss, Elizabeth, a gangly woman with electrified hair and puppet-like movements. Such a squalid routine, deeply rooted in a genetic xenophobia and apparently impossible to be shaken, will find its balance-breaking element in Yorgos, a new worker from Greece. Though ignorant, barely able to articulate a sentence and initially open to being manipulated by the group, Yorgos learns to take advantage of one peculiar feature: being well-hung.
As in many Fassbinder’s plays and films, the sexual tension is the catalyst of social representation, misrepresentation, and, eventually, achievement. The language of the play is fragmented, dry, raw, and ironically artificial; the lines are continuously interrupted by flashy movements and sexual poses that weave an intricate web of allusions. Lazić keeps the actors in perpetual motion through repetitive acts – they continuously switch seats, take turns grabbing beers from a fridge and playing songs on the radio — creating a representation of the depraved rituals of contemporary intolerance.
The audience peeks at the activities of this absurd anthill of degradation, switching from being a spectator to being an unconscious accomplice. And this proves to be a successful way of portraying the responsibility of society not only in discriminating strangers, but also in keeping themselves away from the construction of a democratic environment. In other words, violence breeds violence, and the orgiastic lynching that puts an end to this apologue is even more chilling as it’s not enough to stop our giggling.
Published on 2 December 2015 (Article originally written in Italian)
Sergio Lo GattoLives in Rome/Italy, where he freelances as a theatre critic and cultural journalist. Co-founder of teatroecritica.net
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