5-11-07
European Theatre Prize
I spent April 25-May 1 in Northern Greece in the city of Thessaloniki, the largest Greek metropolis after Athens. I’d been invited by the European Union (EU) and the National Theatre of Northern Greece to attend the 2007 Europe Prize for Theatre. In -addition, the International Association of Theatre Critics (IATC), one of several co-sponsors of the Prize, asked me to participate in an opening-day colloquium organized by the IATC. Immediately after the welcoming speeches by high-ranking Greek and pan-European officials, I took my place on stage with colleagues from Korea, Russia, Turkey and Spain, chaired by IATC president Ian Herbert, from the United Kingdom.
The Europe Theatre Prize is a Big Deal. The EU, after all, has 22 member nations who speak nearly as many languages, and for purposes of the Prize, the multi-national jury looks beyond the EU proper to consider theatre artists and organizations from non-member nations such as Russia, Latvia, Belarus, Turkey and even Israel. Including critics, scholars, journalists and theatre artists, attendance at the four-day Europe Theatre Prize event approached 800. The Berliner Ensemble alone sent 50. The United States was represented by only four people, of whom I was the only with a place in the official program.
The 11th Europe Theatre Prize, which comes with 60,000 Euros attached, was shared by Berlin-based director Peter Zadek and Canadian Robert Lepage. An additional prize, the Europe Prize New Theatrical Realities, was awarded for the 9th time to two younger artists, Latvian director/playwright Alvis Hermanis and Serbian director/playwright Biljana Srbljanovic. Most readers probably know Robert Lepage, whose work has been seen in Chicago, and some readers may know Peter Zadek, a post-Communist power at the Berliner Ensemble. If you are like me, however, Hermanis and Srbljanovic (“zir-bl’yanovich”) are artists you don’t know. Lepage is not the first North American to receive the award. Pina Bausch and Robert Wilson also have won, along with the likes of Peter Brook, Heiner Muller, Giorgio Strehler, Harold Pinter, Lev Dodin, Ariane Mnouchkine and a few others—yeah, mostly men.
The official program consisted of daily symposia on the winners and their works, with dozens of critics and scholars and working theatre artists delivering papers, or participating in panel discussions. The evenings consisted of performances of their works in complete productions by the Berliner Ensemble, the Yugoslav Drama Theatre, the New Riga Theatre and the Schauspielhaus Zurich.
All performances were scheduled for 9 p.m., but nothing began on time—15 or 20 minutes late was good—which made some evenings very long. The Berliner Ensemble’s closing-night performance of Peer Gynt, directed by Peter Zadek, began shortly after 10 p.m. and lasted more than three hours. The daytime programs were similarly unpunctual and often dull as people talked about theatre but didn’t do anything theatrical. Events took place at the Vassiliko (Royal) Theatre and the Theatre for the Society of Macedonian Studies.
Both playhouses—across the street from each other along Thessaloniki’s broad waterfront boulevard—are part of the National Theatre of Northern Greece (NTNG), established in the 1960s to create a major Greek cultural center in addition to Athens. The NTNG produces 20 shows a year in three indoor theatres and two vast (4,000-5,000 seats) summertime outdoor venues. The handsome indoor houses—none more than 40 years old—have state-of-the-art technology and 621 to 753 seats plus huge public lobbies, cafes, rehearsal halls, shops, etc. Curiously, all three are proscenium houses; not a thrust stage or—shades of ancient Greece—arena configuration to be found. The NTNG stages classics to modern fare, and—judging from the video clips running in the theatre lobbies—seems to love musicals. Next up, however, is Don Carlos (Schiller’s play, not Verdi’s opera).
But the Europe Theatre Prize is not about Greek theatre. It is very much about politics, or at least as much about politics as about art. The winners all have had distinguished international artistic credentials, but most of them also have been known for their politics. Western European winners such as Pinter and Brook are dedicated leftists, while Eastern European winners such Vaclav Havel and Lev Dodin used theatre to fight repressive regimes.
Many of the post-Communist regimes of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union are similarly repressive, and the prize for New Theatrical Realities in particular has been used to support the work of artists laboring in the shadow of threats and coercion. Witness this year’s awards to Hermanis and Srbljanovic; both artists are part of the cultural establishment of their nations, but that doesn’t exempt them from official censorship and threat.
The new regimes are curiously ambivalent about theatre. On the one hand, they want the recognition and respect that cultural prominence can bring them, but they also want their artists to follow the party line and not raise embarrassing social or politicalissues. Of course, you know artists; you can’t have it both ways.
Among the interesting people I met were Nikolai Khalezin and his wife Natalia Koliada, who run the Belarus Free Theatre in Minsk. Their problems are typical. Government censorship of plays—many written by Khalezin—is heavy: no dirty words, no politics, no sex. “Well, that leaves drinking,” I said. “No, not even that!” Nikolai laughed as we refilled our wine glasses on the lovely terrace of the Vassiliko Theatre cafe.
The government issues them exit permits to take their work to European festivals (the carrot of prestige), then holds their national identity cards for two months when they return so they can neither exit again nor even travel within Belarus (the stick). The government has withdrawn their license to operate, leading them to perform in private apartments until threatened for that, too, and then restored the license. The Belarus Free Theatre welcomed an American production of Nilo Cruz’s Anna in the Tropics. The government media gave it great play (prestige), and then sent the censor to provide daily notes to the visiting troupe. The American artistic director joked that he was left only with conjunctions.
Work and a reputation beyond Belarus can protect Nikolai and Natalia and their company. The better-known they are, the more highly regarded they are in other nations, the harder it will be for the government to deny them. To that end, the Belarus Free Theatre recently has become a member of the European Theatre Convention, another of the co-sponsors of the Europe Theatre Prize. With 40 member theatres in 26 countries, and growing, the European Theatre Convention (ETC) is supportive of smaller subsidized (what we’d call non-profit) companies—leaving the larger, famous institutions to membership in the older Union of European Theatres (another co-sponsor). ETC membership costs 5,000 Euros a year, but exceptions are occasionally made for the most hard-pressed, the Belarus Free Theatre among them.
I immediately thought of Chicago companies large and small which regularly present foreign companies or perform plays by contemporary non-English speaking European authors. Prominent among such troupes are Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Chopin Theatre, Trap Door Theatre and TUTA. Would they be interested in establishing ties with the ETC? Chicago Shakes already deals with larger companies that are members of Union of European Theatres, but perhaps the others might be eager for exchanges of plays, artists and even productions. Even as you read this, Trap Door Theatre is off for a month in Romania to appear at three festivals.
I sat down with ETC president Jean-Claude Berutti and asked whether membership by Euro-centric American theatres would be possible. He was pleasantly surprised by the question which, clearly, never had occurred to him, and immediately said, “I don’t see why not. Perhaps some type of associate membership.” Details and requirements would have to be worked out, but the door is open. In a pro-active spirit, I would be happy to facilitate contact between interested Chicago companies and the ETC.
Look for more on the European Prize in the next Behind the Curtain column.