What was there before the after? Reflecting on the Past in Post-Socialist Countries.
- Theatre Symposium on Coming to Terms with the Past-
The Slovak Institute in Budapest, (VIII. Rákóczi út 15.)
2008. november 27-29.
| Review | Participants | Programme |
14.00 The need of past elaboration, its possibilities and limitations in the present society of each country. The special position and means of theatre in this process. Theoretical aspects.
| Andrea Tompa HU |
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Making History in the Communist Era. Time, Spaces and Consciousness » |
| Magdolna Marsovszky HU/D |
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Past Elaboration, Cultural Politics, Theatre » |
| Joanna Krakowska PL |
|
Societal attitudes and the obstacles of past elaboration. Fear, denial, repression » |
| Anna Czékmány HU |
|
(A)politic theatre. Societal/political meaning layers of theatrical form languages » |
| Katalin Vecsey USA/HU |
|
Into the past via the present: Contemporary Hungarian Drama as a Pedagogical Approach |
15.15 Coffee break
15.30 Discussion
19.00Theatre performances (from the Hungarian and international program of the Contemporary Drama Festival).
10.00The question of political and social responsibility of theatre after the system change at the turn of the nineties.
| Martina Musilova CZ |
|
The political role of the Czech theatre in November 1989 » |
| Paweł Sztarbowski PL |
|
Social Theatre in Poland. A few Key Points. » |
| Barbara Orel SLO |
|
Theatre as a Political Forum |
| Tereza Sieglova CZ |
|
Amateur Theatre and its Role in the Society Before and After the Regime Changes. » |
| László Eörsi HU |
|
The ’Aczélian’ cultural politics and the Csiky Gergely Theatre in Kaposvár » |
11.15 Coffee break
11.30 Discussion
13.30 Lunch
14.00 Possibilities in the theatrical representation of past historical events and eras.
| Ildikó Zrínyi Ungvári RO |
|
Ceremony, Body, Drama Form » |
| István Mohácsi HU |
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What Is There After the Before? – Is it Important to Come to Terms With the Past? » |
| Jan Klata PL |
|
B.Y.O.B. (BRING YOUR OWN BATTLE) Strategic Approach for Past, Present, and Future » |
| Attila Szabó HU |
|
Staging a revolution |
15.15 Coffee break
15.30 Discussion
19.00 Theatre
09.30 The presentation of everyday life and individual options in written drama and theatre performances. Everyday socialism.
| Jan Simko SK |
|
Memory of Bratislava: THE STORIES FROM PETRŽALKA (Disconnection) » |
| Anja Bajda SLO |
|
Influence of the ideology and major political system on the perception of sexuality in the Slovene post-war dramatic texts » |
| Miruna Runcan, Constantin-Cristian Buricea-Mlinarcic RO |
|
Everyday Life Drama: An Interdisciplinary Project in Progress » |
| Iulia Popovici RO |
|
The “Return of the gender” in the Eastern European Theatre after 1989. The Romanian Case. » |
| Denis Poniž SLO |
|
Autocensorship, a secret weapon of communist regime »
|
10.30 Coffee break
10.45 Discussion
12.15 Lunch
13.15 Reception forums of the theatrical event, debate on the success and problems of past elaboration.
| Armin Petras D |
|
Coming to Terms with the Past in the German Theatre of the last 20 years. » |
| Jan Jirik CZ |
|
The problems of the language of theatre critics of the late 80ies and methodological problems of traditional theatre studies » |
| Nánay István HU |
|
Metaphorical Speech of Theatre Critics » |
| Radka Kunderowa CZ |
|
What for Are Theatre Reviews from Communist Era Today? » |
| Jászay Tamás HU |
|
To whom do we write? What for do we write? » |
14.15 Coffee break
14.30 Discussion
15.30 Break
16.00 Closing discussion about the festival performances with the participants of the criticism seminar.
19.00 Theatre, farewell party
Theatre of the communist era views the audience as active participant of history. “We”, the masses are the history makers. Audience is not anymore a passive viewer who only reflects on multiple variations and interpretations of history on a theatre stage. The active viewer (the actor itself, the one who acts) is part of the fight for the “true case” of the communist Revolution.
History is understood as an ongoing process with a theological goal, with an evident progress (borrowing the Christian ideas of salvation and
Theatre leaves traditional spaces (i.e. theatre buildings), occupying social spaces. (Example: The anniversary of the Soviet Revolution in 1920, The Storming of the Winter Palace staged by N. Evreinov.) Traditional theatre spaces would divide audience and viewers, while social spaces would transform everybody into an active participant, would integrate all masses, irrespectively to social classes, would make theatre accessible for everybody, and would create the image of a spectacular and theatrical or carnavalesque, history making society.
Would be possible to apply Mihail Bakhtin’s notions of monological and dialogical prose for the understanding of history in the different social systems? The monological consciousness of history (“our” consciousness) is the one which drives the events; there is only one point of view on history. Dialogical consciousness would require at least two, equally legitimate voices and attitudes, and a passive viewer (reader or audience) who would reflect on it.
Past Elaboration, Cultural Politics, Theatre
In Hungary, after the regime change the fear had spread, justly, that the all-time cultural politics, based on the real-socialist tradition, “uses” theatre as a means of agitation propaganda. From the nineties onwards, however, the lack and sparse nature of the financial means also characterizes the theatrical life, due to which – justly – another fear was also spreading, that the former government guidelines leading the cultural and theatrical sphere will be substituted by the laws of the market, which will result in the “commercialization” of theatre culture. Today nobody seems to deny theatre’s role of identity formation, in the mean time, however, we can experience a tendency towards the reinforcement of the nationalist identity, which has an effect of mobilization for the exclusion and segregation tactics of some individuals or groups of people, a tendency clearly shown by the German research findings.
The nationalist concept is a characteristic of a closed society, as it blocks the self-reflective ability of the society, that is, its ability to come to terms with its past, which is, on the other hand, indispensable for the establishment of an open society. The question in
Societal attitudes and the obstacles of past elaboration. Fear, denial, repression.
Joanna Krakowska
Social and political attitudes towards the communist past of Poland have been changing since 1989 from cutting-of-the-past attitude, through nostalgia, to interest, research and vetting. Every stage of this process that could be called “coming to terms with the past” faced different obstacles and challenges. All forms of past elaboration have been also subjected to manipulation and abuse. To describe them means to describe the ups and downs of the mainstream politics and its alternatives on both sides of political stage - nationalist and new left. It is the only way to explain why black-and-white narrations of the past compete in the public discourse with those aimed at understanding rather than condemnation.
Current mainstream politics has always influenced theatre in the negative way, providing examples how not to talk about history. Lately however, the administration forced its own vision of Polish history and it has been followed by some of the theatre artists, mostly on public television and with little artistic success. It would be interesting to compare this official vision that nourishes heroic, patriotic and sentimental dreams of the past with the historical discourse encouraged by alternative political groups and ideologies, whose aim is to reveal what is difficult, repressed and denied in the history of Poland. Theatre has lately become interested in history, directors of the new generation do not hesitate to explore the most controversial episodes of the past sixty years. Can they expect their public to stand by them?
(A)polic theatre. Social/political meaning layers of theatrical form languages
To grab the most important phenomena of contemporary Hungarian theatre is indispensable to clear the recent past's decisive, notable features. It sounds like a commonplace, but a true commonplace. My presentation primarly focuses on the relationship between theatre, society and politics in the communist era with the help of (mainly) Foucault's theories.
How theatre related to the discourse of power? (Theater's position in the structure of state power.) Could we typologize these relations? What was the main characteristic of this power? Has theatre a social importance? (Theatre's influence on micro- and macrocommunities and the reprecussion.)
So in my presentation I'm going to touch one of the most typical features of the Kádár era: the fact of the permanent present, wich misses the past and the future as well; the different theatrical answers to this kind of time-jail: the frank discourse, the dubious discourse and the power discourse; the strong and fruitful connection between community and theatre.
Of course I'm going to emphasise the "consequence" of these features in contemporary Hungarian theatre.
The political role of the Czech theatre in November 1989
Martina Musilová, Ph. D
After the occupation in 1968, the representatives of alternative theatres felt the disintegration and collapse of all Czech society. They looked for a new basement that would make possible to create a new community – parallel polis. These tendencies had culminated in the period of perestrojka and glasnosť, and later during the November days of 1989, when the principles built in the parallel polis had spread to all Czech society thanks to the theatres. In the manifest of theatre artists from the 18th November 1989the Czechoslovak theatres were called on to join a week strike and to open theatre buildings for discussions with the public. The theatres did and the November (Velvet) revolution annulled not only a forestage (the theatre ramp), the dividing principle, but also it destroyed a petrified stratification of the society. In post-November time the new social-political content didn’t find its new form. Czech theatres rejected social-political function of the theatre and for long ten years they stayed off this kind of themes. Those artists who wanted to elaborate social-political conflicts did it by using forms that Czech theatre inherited of previous period. New themes were engrafted on the rigid and dead form. The typical example is the Michal Viewegh´s play Růže pro Markétu (Roses for Margaret) from 1990. It portrays the situation at the Faculty of Philosophy during the revolutionary days, but Viewegh used in fact the rigid form of TV production of late 80´s.
Social Theatre in Poland. A few Key Points.
Paweł Sztarbowski
The lecture will revolve around the changes in modern Polish theater. Following the breakthroughs of 1989, theatrical artists decided that theater needn't concern itself with social and political issues, leaving these areas to the newly freed media and press. Theaters began to focus on entertainment or matters of personal consciousness. It quickly became apparent, however, that the belief in the banality of our lives, founded in neoliberal theory, is a myth, since the consequences of the transformation were throngs of alienated people, who were pushed beyond the margins of society. The youngest of theatrical artists, such as Jan Klata, Michał Zadara, and Wiktor Rubin, determined that theater is the best place to unmask the language of power, to demonstrate the extent to which the power elite is a lie and demonstrate its hidden symbolic violence. I will attempt to present the means and methods by which they operate.
The role of Slovenian theatre in the shaping of the social conditions at the downfall of communism
Barbara Orel,
What role did Slovenian theatre play as a political forum at the downfall of communism in the former
Amateur Theatre and its Role in the Society Before and After the Regime Changes
Tereza Sieglová
The subject of my paper is a phenomenon of amateur theatre in the
That is why the amateur theatre was really progressive in that time. They could examine new ways of theatre expression and they could explore the topics unthinkable in the professional theatre. The festivals of amateur theatre were conceived as a points of meeting between amateurs and professionals who often draught inspiration from it. After the Regime Changes the most progressive groups or rather personalities of amateur theatre naturally conquered their place in the professional theatre and they became the protagonists of the Czech theatre of the 90s as P. Lébl and J. A. Pitínský. On the other hand, after the opening of occasions of a creative self-fulfillment in all the other fields of the society there was a vast outflow of people to other spheres of society.
There is no specific research to rely on, but my hypothesis is that the amateur theatre nowadays is much more based on the educational function, so it has often a form of drama teaching, but before the Regime Changes it was much more based on a sense of freedom, as an alternative community it offered a possibility to express one’s opinions without an omnipresent self-censorship.
The ’Acélian’ cultural politics and the Csiky Gergely Theatre in Kaposvár
László Eörsi
How strong was the influence of the national and local cultural politics on the theatrical life of the then largest Hungarian theatre? The ’tolerated’ cathegory of the cultural policy accredited to György Aczél (a quite unstable position between the two extremes of ’banned’ and ’supported’) was subject to several attempts of broadening by the company or theatre leadership. What were the administrative punitive measures of the national and Somogy county party leaders, of the functionaries in the ministry and of the local authorities against the theatre? What were the moments which triggered these administrative measures? Did the continutation of the Acélian line by Pozsgai and Berecz bring about any notable changes? How did the theatre’s direction react to the measures of cultural politcs?
I am attempting to find answers mainly to these questions in my theatre historical research, in which I am really only at the beginning. As far as I know there has not yet been a paper written in this topic, therefore predominantly basic research needs to be carried out.
The theatre aquired first the disapproval of the opinion leaders of cultural policy following the guest performance in Budapest of the Állami áruház (State Department Store) operett as they labelled the performance in Vígszínház in all aspects extremist. Yet in the question of how critical this situation was, not everybody is on the same opinion. The last bigest danger was the production of Peter Weiss’s Marat/Sade, especially after being granted the BITEF prize in Belgrade in the summer of 1982. The then cultural minister sharply attacked the spirit of the performance. This time the performance was followed by a harsh intervention: the theatre director had to dismiss its dramaturge, notorius of his maverick feelings.
From the theatre personalities of the period I have already recorded interwievs with Tamás Ascher, László Babarczy, Gyula Gazdag, Gábor Zsámbéki, yet they, naturally, cannot know what had happened behind the coulisse of the party. There’s the hope, however, that this will come to light grace to the research in the archive records.
Ildikó Ungvári Zrínyi, University of Theatre, Târgu Mureş (Marosvásárhely)
In my presentation I would like to investigate the appearence of everyday life individual possiblities in dramatic works and theatre performances of the communist era. As an introduction to the analysis I would like to point out how the communist ideology rewrites the everiday life structures of dramatism, the everyday theatrical spaces (the enlightment ideology of culture houses), the monological or dialogical structure of communication spaces (e.g. the monological principle of culture homes, culture houses), the role of the ceremonies in everyday life and in the arts, the relationship between ceremoniality and individual values (e.g. 1 May and 23 August celebrations are built on old social rites).
Further, I would focus on the working mechanisms of the body images prescribed by the regime for everyday and theatrical use: centralized body, expressing will and direction, the geometrical system of bodies, reliable forms on the stage, the Hegelean conflict and unity of antagonisms.
The above issues I would analise partly during the cultural opening of the sixites, in parallel with the forms and genres of the ’high’ theatical culture, based on a performance of The Bald Soprano, and the absurd and absurdoid drama by Géza Páskándi, focusing on its conflict possibilities and grotesque nature. In Ionesco’s play we find ritualistic moments in the closing act – which the reviewers don’t interpret as a ceremony nor as a counter-ceremony, yet in a concluding essay on the performance we can spot out an intention of alluding to the end of a theatrical ideal, a theatrical style. In Géza Páskándi’s “absurdoid” plays everyday reality opens up absurd cracks – there is no conflict, only an unnamable viewpoint.
What Is There After the Before? – Is it Important to Come to Terms With the Past?
István Mohácsi
- The elaboration of the past
- What does past mean: a privy glance. 56 brought people together – this thing cannot be done again.
- Can one elaborate on a historical event?
- Is there an objective truth? Is the past really a somehow, a particular way, is there a real past?
- Do we need to come to terms with the past at all?
- Past has passed.
a.Communism was a long time ago – I don’t remember it myself
b.Half of the audience doesn’t know what I’m talking about.
i. What era, events
ii. What political figures – Kádár and Julius Ceasar
iii. Russian jokes: красная точка, товариш учитель
c. The normality of the issue: mobile phones, visa, Internet, darkness (Boccaccio) – and the suffering: I myself don’t know how it all happened, though two grandfathers.
d. I wonder if this is a problem. Is it sinful to forget the past?
- Approach: playwrighting
- Our play on 56 (XY said…) – is not with history, instead we wanted a play, for today.
- History, like a novel: is not meant for the stage.
i. It flows
ii.There aren’t any dramatic clashes
- The topic might be the past but we can only deal with the present.
- We have to get back to people or general things, like war (
- Why do we turn to the past? We were not interested in the story, but the people in tense situations.
4. Can we elaborate a historical event, can we come to terms with the past? Can we get over a love? One can get to understand the past, even anatomize it – but is there anything to elaborate on?
B.Y.O.B. (BRING YOUR OWN
Strategic Approach for Past, Present, and Future
Jan Klata
The aim is to mention three ways or periods about reflecting past in Polish theatre, based on three of my performances.
- “Rewizor” (Nikolaj Gogol), premiere: Teatr im. Szaniawskiego, Wałbrzych, Poland (2003)
- „H.” (based on William Shakespeare „Hamlet”), Teatr Wybrzeże,
- “The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch” (based on Philip K. Dick novel), Narodowy Stary Teatr, Kraków (2006)
For all of them the most important is the context of Polish history and culture. With the first one we are going back to the past (or to the stereotypes about it) and see how we are trying to leave the communist burden. At the same time, we observe also the way of creating the myths about communist past.
With “H.” we show rather the present reality of
Finally, the performance “The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch” is somehow a journey to the future, where the capitalism becomes the most important culture element, stronger than anything else.
Attila Szabó, Hungarian Theatre Institute and Museum
Fifty-two years after the 1956 Revolution and two years after its grand jubilee in 2006 we are in a position to look back reflectively on both the event and its reception. One but twenty years have passed since remembering ’56 is not considered a counter-revolutionary act anymore. This is enough, on the one hand, for ist compulsory year-by-year celebration to have become a boring school routine (with cockades, suits, long speaches and a day off), on the other, not enough, it seems, to have come to terms with it as a nation. For proof see the fall 2006 ‘events’ in Budapest, an ironic attempt to replicate the ’56 scenario, or the moral/political debate between left- and rightwing parties on who is ‘allowed to’ celebrate the Revolution, and who should be ashamed.
By flashing up a handful of theatrical performances prepared especially for the jubilee I will try to investigate on how a performance (or a film), as an essencial social event, deals with the memory of 1956. Do these performances challenge or at least refine our thinking about the Revolution, through their specific form languages or attitudes? Or do they feel responsible to engage in, or comment on this fiery national debate on the heritage of the socialst times?
Papp András–Térey János’ Dungeons, Castel Felice by Kornél Hamvai, 56’06 produced in Kaposvár by the Mohácsi brothers and Liberté ’56 directed in Debrecen by Attila Vidnyánszki – are some of the most important new dramatic and theatrical works written recently in an attempt to elaborate on the past of the Revolution, in most cases by the younger generation of theatre artists. In what ways are their accounts of the revolution different? What and how far-reaching are their ambitions and how did they find their target in the audience?
Memory of Bratislava: THE STORIES FROM PETRŽALKA (Disconnection)
Ján Šimko
„In Petržalka you cannot wander around, you must have an aim, otherwise it will kill you. This place teaches you how to live in the system.." (Peter, 22 years) „Mom, you must go to the psychiatrist tomorrow, I told her. She was staring at me wondering what all that was about. And I go: I’m taking Pervitin. And she: What’s that? And I also had to make that clear for her.“ (Andrea, 16 years) „12 stories, 6 flats on each, 3 people, on average, in each flat, a horrible number. That’s four streets in my former neighborhood.“(Eva, 56 years)
All big historical events of 20th century left some prints on the history of this place as well as on the personal stories of the people who had lived, have lived or still live there. Famous apricot trees from the village times were cut down and replaced by panel houses. In our research we have met people living in the village, people, whose village houses were destroyed, people, who found their new homes here in the seventies, as well as the people who moved to Petrzalka after 1989.
Influence of the ideology and major political system on the perception of sexuality in the Slovene post-war dramatic texts
Transformation of the perception of sexuality in the Slovene post-war dramatic texts
Anja Bajda, young researcher, BA degree in dramaturgy on Academy for theatre, film, radio and television in Ljubljana, MA study on same institution My research is based on my BA conclusion work with the title: »Female identity and the relation between the sexes and genders in the chosen dramas of the ludist literary period”. In this research I was exploring the interaction between ideology, politics and literary author’s freedom of writing about genders, sexual difference and of writing about relationship between the genders.
I assumed that ludist literary period, present in the Slovene postwar literature between 1964 and 1976, was, in context of perception of the sexuality in dramatic texts, influenced by socialist aesthetic (and socialist ideology). The latter was based on the socialist ethic and its moral values. For both, for social realism and for socialistic realism as two different literary directions, realistic and objective writing about the environment was one of their goals. Their first interests of speaking were setted in social, politic and economic conditions of Slovene nation. Other interests were marginalized by that time, one of these were also the relations between the genders and woman identity. Social and socialistic literary authors were not interested in introspective point of view of war and ideological situations – they were not interested in somebody’s own feelings, but more in the collective experiences. They still preferred to show a woman in her traditional position of mother or lover, in combination with traditional Christian values, like scarification. These literary authors were not interested in presentation of the thoughts and feelings of one person, but in presenting the collective point of view on the politics and ideology. The consequence was, logically, a literary period, called intimism. In these dramatic texts love and the relation between the genders was the theme, but still shown on the background of war circumstances. After that the period, called autodestuctivism, came, in which one love and the relation between the genders was still the part of traditional perception of it and belonged to the ideal, not to the real world. The ludist literary period is named by the Latin expression “ludere”, which means the act of playing. These Slovene dramatic authors were disillusioned because of the major political changes in the place today
The conclusion of my research deals with the finding that the mentioned literary period in
Everyday Life Drama: An Interdisciplinary Project in Progress
Miruna Runcan, C.C.Buricea-Mlinarcic Do young people react and represent themselves in the actual post-communist society? What kind of images do they have about the recent past, especially related to the socialist era? The field of political and social representations of youngsters seems blurred, and the so called refuse of civic implication of the new generations became a stereotype of daily conversations between adults, school teachers and media anchors. In real life experiences, this stereotype suffers profound corrections: a strange interest for religious experiences tends to fill the gap of the political distaste; the urban groups of teenagers in Romania, especially the male ones, reveal a flexible universe of representations and a particular rhetoric of discourses, built on fragmentary quotations from popular culture, parody of media clichés and a lot of paradoxical sadness related to the recent past – including their intra familial experiences. But, this uncomfortable combination – “Kill Bill”-like – is not entirely escapist and does not exclude the accuracy of social observations. The research and creation program Everyday Life Drama was born in 2004, as an interdisciplinary project with two immediate and even urgent dimensions: the first one was to re-link the playwriting practices to the social and political context, after more the one decade of aesthetical escapism and symbolical dominance of the theatre directing in Romania; the second one was the need of renewal in educational methods, by joining together the students from different programs, in a common effort of re-building a coherent perspective about their lives and their discourses. The program combines the workshops for video-journalism, creative writing in media and theatre, and photo-journalism, but also direct anthropological field research, in a research camp of ten days, each of the last five years. The importance of the program is that it offers each year a new bunch of artistic products: video-productions and documentaries, plays and film scenarios, written reports and interviews, photo exhibitions. The last two years, the program was awarded two consecutive grants for Cultural Intervention from the Ministry of Culture in Romania.
There are many types and methods of »nonexisting« censorship in comunist states behind the iron courtain in East Europe, as well in Slovenia, one republic of former multucurtural state of Jugoslavia. In the period after the fall of these regimes, we have learned quite enough about proceedings of censorships, the whole sturcure of »crime and punishement«; of and by the censorship are today described in several sociohistorical papers, reports and books.
Far less is known about autocensorship, a method which allows writers to publish their work even when they are not synchronised with the expectations or ideological commandements of the regime, or worse, when the authors have openly oposed the regime and its ideas or orders.
My paper is dealing with dramatic authors and their works trough the optics of autocensorship. Texts for stage are extremely delicate and all kinds of censorship could stop their attemps to become stage events, presented to a large audience, they could be presented to the audience as »samizdat« publications only. The reaction of many drama authors is known but not descibed properly and analysed in detail: so called autocensorship remains a dark side of the censorship story. Why? First of all it is not easy to give evidence that this or that style or semantic detail in drama texts excites suspicion, being an intervention of autocensorship. Second: nobody is willig to admit frankly that he or she should have reduced his artistic ideas and make a rotten compromise with the regime. And a third reason: the use of autocensorship methods prove the people's suspicions that the regime's censorship really exsists and such »wrong« and »hostile« public beleive damages the bright picture of socialism and its leaders.
So the autiocensorship remains something secret and nowdays also forgoten; my paper tries to put together some of this secret and forgotten pieces and to show on Slovene drama texts what are its effects of autocensorship for contemporaries.
The problems of the language of theatre critics of the late 80ies and methodological problems of traditional theatre studies
Jan Jiřík
The main topic of my conference speech is going to be concerned on the performance of the HaDivadlo Theatre Rozrazil 88/1 and its “reflections” in Czech newspapers. The performance of a small theatre studio from Brno played a very especial role in the theatre life of late 80ies in former Czechoslovakia. The performance openly spoke about freedom, democracy and others very crucial themes of these days; one part of the performance was written by a banned playwright - Václav Havel. The local government of Brno was promptly trying to impose a ban on the performance. In my conference speech, I´m going to pay attention to a role of Rovnost newspapers which started to advocate the performance. I want to mention the style and arguments used during a struggle with an invisible censorship (anyone openly did not ban the performance). The second topic I want to speak about it is an examination of the newspapers reviews of the performance Rozrazil 88/1 as a message for a theatre historian. The reviews´ informations are useless for any historian research, because there is no word about acting, dramaturgy, or directing. Because of Václav Havel, published memories or interviews of actors, or the special role of the performance during the Velvet Revolution, the Rozrazil 88/1 performance is a lucky example. We can be sure not even of its social/political importance, but of its aesthetical value as well. The last point of my presentation is going to be used for a wider reflection on methodological tools of traditional theatre studies.
Of the theatrical performances of the recent past the future generations are mainly informed through the reviews, the source value of which must always be questioned. This has partly personal, subjective reasons and ones that stem from the political-ideological state of the era. This insecurity between 1949-1989 strongly characterized critical life in
In the first decades we can hardly speak of ideologically unbiased theatre reviewing, later, with the softening of dictatorships, the freedom level of reviews increased proportionally. There had come to life an unspoken agreement between the power, the artists and the reviewers. The critic had to write about the performances in a way that the expressed opinion would clearly describe the essence of the performance, without stating, however, such subtleties of the interpretation, which would serve as an excuse for the political and bureaucratic authorities to sanction the (minor or major) trespassing of the ideological principles.
What for Are Theatre Reviews from Communist Era Today?
Methodological problems of research on theatre of communist totalitarian regime
One of the biggest challenges of contemporary theatre historians from post-communist countries is to describe and interpret theatre during communism. To be able to do that, they have to answer the crucial question: what was the theatre like? Since performances themselves do no longer exist, scientists need to search for historical sources and explicate them. And that is the problem: all literary sources, such as theatre reviews or historical books, were manipulated by the totalitarian regime. Are they of any use today? And if they are – how can we benefit from them? (The theme will be explicated on an example of Czechoslovak theatre during 1950´s and its Czech up-to-now historical reflection.)
To whom do we write? What for do we write?
After the regime change the ‘end of history’ apparently arrived to theatres as well. It seemed that the age of privy glances between stage and audience had come to a definite end. This fact brought about for the theatre practice, at least as many negative consequences as positive ones, as the muting of an allegorical imagist language unavoidably meant that several theatre forms became peripherized. In the nineties, with the abolition of the common ‘secret’ knowledge, theatre was tamed from a powerful weapon against the oppressive regime into just one of the numerous means of mass entertainment. Also because of this it is an uncommon phenomenon when several events related to theatre (and I’m not alluding here mainly to the theatre performances) break the stimulus threshold of public opinion and become a topic of debate and conversation. But what does the critic have to do in this case?