/ world today news/ They say that the theater was a mirror of time. A cursory glance at his history will convince us of this. That is why we say: The theater of the time of Queen Elizabeth and Shakespeare /Elizabethan theater/, Theater of ancient Greece, Theater of Stanislavski, Brecht, Meyerhold…Theatre of the Bulgarian revival, Theater of the avant-garde, Theater of the social… And our theater now?
I would call it the “theatre of pseudo-postmodernism and the chalga”. Normal performances are now rare. Yes, there are two lines in it, allegedly opposite, but equally repulsive to the normal viewer, for whom the theater should be, first of all, “Spectacle and education”, as the great Vazov said. And its educational mission should perhaps be a “mirror” /aesthetic corrective/ of our actual behavior. And along with that to affirm certain social ideals. It was like that even when it appeared in our country, in the middle of the 19th century. But is that the case today? Is the theater really a “mirror of time”? Yes, maybe we don’t need that mirror today. After all, it also has, above all, a moral value, and we must become pragmatists, which we were not before. Because “How will we reach them…”? And we have so many other means of controlling and correcting morality, not least laws and repressive institutions, that the theater is perhaps not so necessary. But until recently he was an outlet for many. A temple of the spirit, as any normal, real theater should be. This was bequeathed to us by the ancient Greeks. In the recent past, when the state took care of the theater, but also watched it closely, the Aesopian language of our authors passed through the needle ears of the censor. The plays of Stanislav Stratiev, Miron Ivanov, Yordan Radichkov, Ivan Radoev, Stefan Tsanev, Konstantin Iliev blew up the halls more than once. These are really great playwrights. It’s a shame they’re hardly put on anymore. And now? Yes, indeed, the time of conditional-metaphorical theater has passed. The theater in the street, in the stadium and especially that of the Parliament are more interesting. And most of the media / especially some of them for whom culture is something foreign like BTV and Nova TV / are more interested in the love stories of folk stars and TV presenters, or in the shootouts between mafia groups, than in the success of Stanislav Stratiev and Hristo Boychev in London or Radichkov in Rome…
Unfortunately, our country, more precisely our ignorant, power-hungry and quick-to-get-rich statesmen, long ago turned their backs on culture and spirituality, including the Bulgarian theater. They invented an absurdity unheard of in civilized Europe – the so-called “delegated budgets”, a pseudo-reform, through which they marked the beginning of its end. Thus, the Bulgarian drama theater, one of the best in the world, was brought to its knees before the authorities. To be self-supporting through the revenue from the tickets sold. This is not available anywhere in the world. Everywhere culture is supported by the state, as is education. Because culture is also education, education of feelings, it quenches our thirst for spirituality, it is not a luxury at all, it is not something superfluous. As one misunderstanding said, a “culture” minister forced upon us by B.B. without any qualities and culture for it, and now, imagine in the Committee for Culture in the National Assembly?! So he, the same one who became the laughingstock of the people from the guild, literally stated the following that: “Bulgarian theaters are…a cyst in the body of the Bulgarian taxpayer!” / Yes, you read correctly, although it is shocking, from the mouth of a person who claims to have worked for the culture of Bulgaria!/ And this same person had threatened to reduce: the National Operetta, the Staro Zagora Opera, the Veliko Tarnovo Music and Drama Theater , Dance Theater “Arabesque”! Although each of them is a unique cultural institute, it did not fulfill, imagine! the “delegated budgets”! Imagine: Vezdyo Rashidov deciding their fate?!
Yes, this GERB “policy” has already borne its bitter fruits. Quite a few good repertory regional theaters, the only temples of culture in their regions, turned into open stages, that is, they were practically destroyed, others were left to the will of fate, others, like the oldest in our country and very popular among the audience – “Tear and laughter” just closed! / On the other hand, the self-employed troupes of squatters and maanets in Razgrad and Kardzhali, needed for the election campaigns of the illegal DPS, remained on state support./ But since there is no empty space in nature. The collective private troupes of the so-called “bears”, of artists who became famous mainly from television and commercials, most of them already well known to the viewers. With boulevard plays – one-day plays – mainly by American and French, but also Russian authors – they invaded the cities, now without theaters, as well as the large cultural centers and thus in a short time imposed a decidedly low standard with plays whose titles speak for themselves for myself: “Which bastard ate the cheese?”, “Help, my wife is crazy!”, “Four in a bed”, “The polygamist”, “When the cat is gone”, “Rare fools”, “My wife’s name is Boris ” and other similar “masterpieces”. “Stars of the first magnitude” appeared, most of the sleazy shows on Nova TV and the disgusting Big Brother, from Slavi’s show, and also from some big theaters. And a number of the theaters in the country, pressed by this unfair competition, I would rather call it the aggression of the commercial “bears” with their frank swag, were forced to make unforgivable repertoire and aesthetic compromises. Thus, the Burgas Theater, one of the best in our country, recently staged “The Merry Windsors” and Shakespeare, using as a “crutch” the participation of a pop girl with a hoarse voice. In order to tie the plan, the Ruse, led too badly and selfishly by GERB’s protégé Orlin Dyakov, began to continuously invite a joker from BTV’s Comedians. The examples are truly countless. One look at the poster titles alone will convince us of that. I expect soon that some theater will stage “Hamlet” or “Othello” with Azis, Crisko and Sofi Marinova. Compromises with true art are simply unforgivable. The result is already available. An audience with decidedly degraded requirements, with an increasingly low culture. She was also seen in the show “Get Rich”, where young, educated people have a rather poor general culture. And those people who make the theater in our country, especially the directors and directors, seem to be unable to understand a simple, alphabetic truth. The great Chekhov said it very precisely: “In the theater, gentlemen, it is not Gogol who should come down to the people, but the people should rise up to Gogol!”. But how, like in the National Theater you have to strip completely naked the actor playing Hamlet during his famous monologue, or in the Youth Theater instead of presenting educational performances for children and young people/ they are already in the pop world!/ something like peep show, but with…men / “The Great Boys”/, needlessly undressing actresses and actors on stage, making fun of Dostoevsky’s “Idiot” like the director Desi Shpatova / in 2010 you made a talentless pastiche of 4 translated by me Ionesco plays so I just couldn’t recognize them!/, with Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” as Teddy Moscow / quite successfully defined by a young theater scholar as: “Macbeth of Moscow – yesterday’s, undercooked hamburger”/, like the parodies of Lilia Abadjieva on all the world classics….For these lost three decades we saw a lot, didn’t we? From the post-avant-garde claims of Margarita Mladenova and Ivan Dobchev in the half-empty halls of “Sfumato” and the necrophiliac riffs of Ivan Stanev to the vulgarities of the greedy “bears”.
And the theater awards “Icarus” and “Askeer” were completely compromised. Some time ago, for a male role, he was excellent…Marius Kurkinski, declared by some critics to be almost the “Bulgarian Laurence Olivier”
Here I would like to mention that the blame for the crisis, for the decline of our theater is not only in the state. Even children already know that the state spends money on unnecessary projects with money from the EU, which rulers and officials steal. That he brought the theaters to a beggar’s stick is a real disgrace. The Ministry of Culture cannot provide meager funds even for our only theater magazine. This is the truth. But theatergoers themselves are also to blame for this decline. They too easily accepted the situation, stopped fighting and asserting their rights. Moreover, their union, the Union of Artists in Bulgaria, led by Boyko’s friend, Hristo Mutafchiev / became famous for his role in “Dunavmost”/, did not protect them at all, on the contrary, it bowed to the authorities. The Ministry of Culture abandoned the theaters, and long ago forgot about its methodological and control functions. He began to monitor only the implementation of the absurd delegated budgets, and the director competitions in most cases are held with protections and manipulations, candidates are launched mainly along party lines. Today, most directors are real feudal lords, they rule alone, without artistic advice, some of them use their positions for their personal careers without really working for the theaters. Many of them work mainly for themselves. The lack of operational theater criticism, the suppression of cultural periodicals, also has a bad effect on the level of the Bulgarian theater. There are no periodic reviews and evaluation of the production of the individual theaters, and the “Icarus” and “Asker” awards are often given out unfairly and the capital is always ahead of the country… We even have an absurd, unknown outside of Bulgaria, term “extra-capital theaters” ?!
Sad, isn’t it? And will one day our theater regain its previous, normal appearance, will it become a temple, a “spectacle and education”? I hope the rulers and the theater people will come to their senses.
Dostoevsky’s characters from “Idiot”
in Desi Shpatova’s performance
Here I will quote part of the assessment of theater critic Krasimira Vasileva: “A nightmarish production of Idiot, really, nightmarish!” I can’t forget her. With Hovhannes Torosyan in a crumpled T-shirt, tracksuit and rubber boots, who played the main role, of Prince Mishkin, and Vlado Penev – in a bra, with sequins, high heels, a gypsy scarf and singing Vysotsky’s songs – in the role of Lebedev, unknown why. If someone can explain to me why Lebedev was decided like that, I will be very pleased. In any case, I have not found a reasonable explanation…”
„Macbeth” by Teddy Moskov –
„yesterday’s undercooked hamburger”
„To be or not to be?” –
And here is the first Hamlet-nudist / Leonid Yovchev/
in Yavor Gardev’s production at the National Theater
#Mirror #time #or…With #sadness #Bulgarian #theater
