The Performance Review section, edited by Matti Linnavuori, features seventeen reviews from across the globe including a fascinating piece by Mihail Baykov on a Swedish production of Strindberg's Miss Julie presented in Bulgaria last summer. Baykov's discourse on Anna Pettersson's self-directed performance is appropriately titled "Beyond the Cliches of Miss Julie" and features a few arresting images of Pettersson's multimedia exploration in which "all characters merge—not only those of Julie, Jean and Christine, but also that of Anna Pettersson herself, who comments on the other roles."
The Essay section, edited by Maria Helena Serôdio, continues its mission of enhancing critical discourse by providing essays and reviews by five established authors, who are encouraged to move freely from essay to review, and from review to essay, often with relevant references to cultural theory. The Critics on Criticism section presents essays by critics Mark Brown and Andrea Tompa. Sections highlighting Interviews, Book Reviews, and Conference Papers are also filled with insight on international performance and performers.
Opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu, center, joins artists protesting a move by Istanbul's mayor to take over decision-making in the Istanbul theatres in April 2012. (AP Photo)
The following letter was forwarded to AICT-IATC
Secretary General Michel Vaïs by Hasan Anamur of the Turkish section of the
International Association of Theatre Critics:
The Executive Committee of the Turkish section of
the IATC wishes to inform you of the critical situation facing the theatre and
artistic communities in Turkey since the 2000 rise to power of a political
party that is trying to create conditions aimed at controlling all kinds of
theatrical creations, to close down all state theatres, as well as municipal
theatres in order to establish what they refer to as “a conservative art” of
which no one knows the real meaning. Oppression from this party on the life of
theatre has become more and more stifling. We ask that the following press
release be shared with all the sections of the IATC.
Best regards,
Hasan Anamur
Turkish Section, IATC
FROM THE TURKISH SECTION OF IATC
The Turkish Section of the IATC wishes to announce
that Turkey is presently undergoing measures taken by the political party in power
against artistic events in general, and theatrical activities in particular.
Just to give some examples, we can mention the
situation of the Atatürk Cultural Center in Istanbul, which has venues for
opera, ballet, concerts and theatre, as well as a gallery for exhibitions. It
is closed since June 2008, first under the pretext that it was being restored,
then demolished for a reconstruction. But nothing was done to date and the city
of Istanbul, among the three cities elected to be a World Cultural Center in
2010 by UNESCO, was deprived of it for all that time. The restoration was
recently questioned, and there are still no signs that it will begin.
As for the town council of Istanbul, without any
notice, at the end of the 2011–12 theatre season, it imposed a new regulation
to the Istanbul Municipal Theatre—which is 98 years old—and cancelled all the
rights of the artistic director to transfer them to bureaucrats of the town
hall who are incompetent in this field. This decision and its application have caused
strong protests and large popular and artistic demonstrations in Istanbul and
throughout Turkey.
Recently, the town hall of Beyoglu (Pera) in
Istanbul, following the Istanbul town hall and with the same excuse of
restoration, has closed down the Karaca (Karadja) Theatre, founded in 1955,
just before the opening of the 2012–13 season, without even informing the dozen
of companies which were sharing this hall.
Lately, the Ministry of National Education has
forbidden the renting of theatre venues in schools to professional theatre
companies.
This is the situation in Turkey. We can only add
that political power is transient, while theatre is eternal.
Colleagues in Hungary tell a story of funding cuts to independent companies in Hungary due to budgetary maneuvers and bureaucratic delays. At this point, the FESZ Secretariat says, it appears there will be no funding in 2012, which has led to the suspension of work by companies such as Pintér Béla Company, Krétakör, and Sputnyik under the
direction of Viktor Bodó. FESZ is an acronym for an independent theatre association. A video released on YouTube by the FESZ Secretariat recounts the difficulties of companies and the impact on individual artists. Spoken in Hungarian, the video has captions available through YouTube's caption service.
Readers of this site may recall postings from 2010 that addressed the ongoing crisis in Hungarian theatre. The press release from FESZ is reprinted below, in shortened form. Szilvia Nagy may be contacted for more information at fesz2012@gmail.com.
BLEEDING INDEPENDENT THEATRES
DRY IN HUNGARY
The Hungarian independent
performers’ scene has been facing serious hardships every year as subsidies
received from the state have been erratic or delayed.
Organizations still waiting for
subsidies for 2012 had to face the fact that cuts announced by the Hungarian
Department of Economics on October 5 also endanger their regular yearly
support.
On November 8, the official
government website announced that there would be further cuts from the already
adjudged (and already decreased) operational subsidies.
Up to this date, the companies
concerned still have not received any official declaration on the rate of these
cuts. A short announcement let independent performers know that this rate would
be even higher than the one mentioned on the government’s website: instead of
by one third, support will be cut by 36.51 percent.
By now, most of the independent
companies are on the verge of not being to function any further: according to
FESZ’s (Association of Independent Theatres) survey, almost half (45 percent)
of the organizations waiting for support have no reserves. If subsidies are not
awarded by the end of the year, the proportion of independent companies without
reserves will grow to 90 percent. One third (32%) of the companies have already
had to take out loans in order to be able to carry on with their operations.
The Hungarian government’s unlawful
course of action, through the delays and cuts in funding, one-sidedly impairs
the freedom of artistic expression and also violates citizens’ constitutional
right to self-education, access to culture, and the possibility to choose from
a palette of different cultural products and experiences.
In our grave situation, we ask for
the solidarity of the international public. Publish and broadcast it through
your media, let your audiences know, that post-Soviet Hungary’s most lively and
progressive artists, who have therefore also been the most ardent supporters of
a democratic value system, are forced to discontinue their operations from
January 2013.
Yun-Cheol Kim, president of the International Association of Theatre Critics (AICT-IATC), writes that the latest edition of Critical Stages is online and ready to stimulate discussion of numerous issues in theater criticism today.
"In particular," Kim writes, "the Special Topic section is abundant with moving articles on how the 3/11 earthquake and tsunami disaster has affected the theater scene in Japan. We all know how calmly and courageously the Japanese people have been as they have dealt with this natural disaster."
Kim goes on to note that the Special Topic articles remind us of the commitment of "our Japanese colleagues, critics and practitioners," who have shouldered many burdens as Japanese society has begun to rebuild.
Critical Stages also focuses on Kapila Vatsyayan, the respected Indian scholar and artist who received the Thalia Prize in Warsaw. In recognizing Vatsyayan, the international association has selected a woman and a non-Western honoree for the first time. Vatsyayan's acceptance speech, originally delivered on recorded video at the Warsaw Congress in March, Kim writes, "elegantly justified IATC’s decision" to honor her with the Thalia, which is given to those who have "significantly influenced our critical thinking with their writing."
In addition to the Special Topic essays and reportage on the Thalia Prize, the sixth edition of Critical Stages also features interviews with prominent directors, actors, and playwrights from Bulgaria, France, Italy, Romania, and the United States. The performance review section includes nine pieces on contemporary theater in Azerbaijan, the Baltic countries, Canada, France, Finland, Hungary, Italy, Korea, and Romania. Also included are two intercultural essays by French authors on Korean and Japanese performances. Three recent books are reviewed in this edition, including a French perspective on Mark Brown’s survey of interviews with Howard Barker across three decades.
