WORLD CONGRESS: “Theatre Beyond the Theatre”

Tomasz Miłkowski

The Polish section of the International Association of Theatre Critics has announced the colloquium theme for XXVI World Congress of AICT-IATC to be held in Warsaw, 26–31 March 2012. Organizer Tomasz Miłkowski, who is president of the Polish section, issued the following call for colloquium papers:

Theatre Beyond the Theatre

As the art form evolves, theatre performance appears to escape the theatre space. Artists create work designed to be performed outside theatre buildings. Frequently they stage work in open spaces, postindustrial areas, desolate locations, and in the streets of our cities, as they depart the traditional theatrical building.

Even when artists produce their work within the theatre building itself they often seek nontraditional spaces such as cellars, attics, technical rooms, or corridors. This shift in production practice seems to be more than a marginal phenomenon. It is a change that appears to draw the audience into closer proximity with the artists.

As these new production techniques develop, theatre artists frequently employ modern techniques including electronic media that may give live performance the feel of a video game. Artists also draw from new performance techniques and employ visual media in their productions. In doing so, they create a new world of theatre influenced by light and music that occasionally renders literature tangential.

Perhaps this marks a return to the origins of theatre itself when actors, singers, and storytellers presented directly to their audiences in city squares, on streets, and in meeting places not created for theatrical purposes.

Is this a victory for visual culture and/or mass culture, or is it a transitional phenomenon? Are we critics able to describe this phenomenon and give it a name? How do we address this dramatic, spatial, and aesthetic reconsideration of contemporary theatre?

WORLD CONGRESS: Warsaw 2012

Warsaw’s Old Town

During its meeting in Tbilisi, Georgia, the executive committee of the International Association of Theatre Critics (AICT-IATC) announced the dates and location for the group’s XXVI World Congress.

For the third time since the IATC was founded in 1956, Warsaw, Poland, will host the most significant gathering of theater critics from around the globe.

Combined with the XIX World Congress held in Gdansk, in 1998, Poland has proven an exceptional and gracious host to theater critics. The congress and its related events will be held March 26–31, 2012. The American Theatre Critics Association will be officially represented by Jeffrey Eric Jenkins, a member of the international executive committee, and by the association’s chair, Jay Handelman, and vice chair, Jonathan Abarbanel. Additional information on the XXVI World Congress will be posted as it becomes available.

UPDATE: Statement on Robert Sturua

FROM the Executive Committee of the International Association of Theatre Critics (AICT-IATC)
Following our meeting with Robert Sturua at the Rustaveli National Theatre in Tbilisi on September 29, the executive committee of the International Association of Theatre Critics, makes the following statement:

As lovers of the theatre and supporters of freedom of expression, we have been deeply disturbed by the removal of Sturua from his post by the Georgian government. Like so many people around the world, we feared that the government had used certain statements attributed to Sturua as a pretext to punish a critical voice from within the artistic community.

Needless to say, however, as internationalists, we were also concerned about the xenophobic remarks that had been attributed to Sturua. At our meeting with him yesterday, Sturua was very honest about what he said in May of this year, and about his motivations. He expressed regret for the particular phrasing that he used and was at pains to distance himself from anti-Armenian or any other xenophobic beliefs; indeed, he put strong emphasis upon the important contribution that Armenians have made to Georgian culture over many centuries.

We welcome these statements by Sturua, which we believe are entirely genuine. Indeed, as is widely accepted, prior to this episode, there has been nothing in Sturua’s theatrical work or in his public life that might suggest any xenophobia on his part.

Having met with the director, it is obvious to us that this matter could have been resolved between the Georgian government and Sturua without the director of Georgia’s National Theatre being removed from his position.

Robert Sturua is a theatre director of high international standing. We hope that, even at this late stage, the Georgian government will recognize its error in removing him from the Rustaveli Theatre, and, in the spirit of freedom of expression and artistic excellence, invite him to take the position of artistic director once again.

ARTS CRISIS: Georgian National Theatre

Georgian Director
Robert Sturua

Georgian theatre critic Irina Gogoberidze reports from Tbilisi that internationally renowned director Robert Sturua was dismissed from his position as artistic director of the country’s most important theatre, Shota Rustaveli National Theatre on August 9. In a letter to members of the International Association of Theatre Critics (AICT-IATC), Gogoberidze wrote that Sturua was fired for “xenophobic” statements that he has made in the past.

Gogoberidze notes in her letter, however, that the government’s “real reason behind this decision was political.” According to the Tbilisi University professor, “Georgia’s government was very displeased by Robert Sturua’s critical public statements, interviews and his performances.” Among the links below, readers will find a May 2011 news article from the Georgia Times in which Sturua refers to government officials as “half-morons.”

International artists have clamored for Sturua to be returned to his position with Vanessa Redgrave, Alan Rickman, and Thelma Holt writing in a letter published online August 28 by The Guardian (UK), “We have never seen any evidence of xenophobia on his part whatever. We cannot believe that this is the real basis of the decision, or that such a charge should be used as a pretext to remove from the Georgian theatre one of its universally acknowledged living treasures.” Georgia’s minister of culture and monument protection, Nikoloz Rurua, responded in a letter published September 6 by The Guardian:

I agree with the authors that Mr. Sturua has made a significant contribution to the arts in Georgia and beyond, but they may not be aware of his recent remarks. In various interviews, he made derogatory remarks about minorities and suggested it was unacceptable to have a member of an ethnic minority (specifically, Armenian) as president of our country. It is correct that nothing in Mr. Sturua’s work suggests xenophobia, but he has not retracted his comments.

In a commentary published online August 23 by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Ghia Nodia, a Georgian former minister of education and science—now a professor of politics at Ilia State University in Tbilisi—acknowledged that Sturua’s firing might “inevitably” appear as if “political scores were being settled” and that Sturua’s “xenophobic comments merely served as the pretext” for action because the director is “widely known to openly oppose the government.” Nodia also draws parallels to Western democracies where public figures who receive their salaries courtesy of the taxpayer “would not remain in office very long” after making similar comments.

Gogoberidze calls for international “friends and colleagues” who have seen Sturua’s work, which includes 19 plays from the Shakespearean canon and a well-regarded production of Brecht’s The Caucasian Chalk Circle, to offer “support . . . in the fight against political persecution of artists.”

The Executive Committee of the International Association of Theatre Critics is scheduled to have its fall meeting in Tbilisi during the Tbilisi International Festival of Theatre at the end of September and beginning of October. ATCA International will provide additional reports from the festival.

RELATED LINKS
International Protests at Director Sturua’s Dismissal Leave Georgian Authorities Unmoved (Report by Salome Modebadze on Georgian goverment reaction to international protests of Sturua’s dismissal, The Messenger [Georgia], 8 September 2011)

Rally in Support of Robert Sturua Takes Place in Tbilisi (Report on protest by Rustaveli Theatre company members of Georgian government’s actions against Sturua, Trend News Agency [Azerbaijan], 31 August 2011)

The Fall Of Robert Sturua Sets A New Standard In Georgian Public Life (Commentary by Ghia Nodia on the website for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 23 August 2011)

Director Robert Sturua: Georgia Is Ruled by Half-Morons (News article in Georgia Times, 25 May 2011)

YOUNG CRITICS: Seminar in Latvia

From MARK BROWN, Adjunct Director of Seminars (AICT-IATC)

The International Association of Theatre Critics (IATC) is pleased to announce a young critics’ seminar to be held in conjunction with the Baltic Drama Festival in Riga, the capital of Latvia, November 18-24, 2011. The performances to be seen include work based on classic Latvian fiction, an exploration of the Latvian “national experience,” as well as visiting works from Estonia and Lithuania. The Latvian hosts invite IATC to hold one seminar group, working in the English language. The seminar will be open to a maximum of 10 participants. Applications are invited from English-speaking professional theater critics between the ages of 18 and 35 years; please attach to your application a brief (one-page) CV, two or three examples of your writing as a professional critic and a letter of recommendation from your national section of IATC. Applicants must be members of the American Theatre Critics Association. Applications will be submitted by the American Theatre Critics Association’s International Committee chair.


The rebuilt House of Blackheads in Riga



Successful applicants will be responsible for the cost of travel to and from Riga and the cost of any visa required for entry to Latvia. The Baltic Theatre Festival generously offers participants free hotel accommodation, meals and tickets for performances. Partial travel grants may be requested from the Foundation of the American Theatre Critics Association.

 
The seminar will be led by Mark Brown, an experienced theatre critic from Scotland. Completed applications must be received by the ATCA International chair by September 5, 2011. Successful applicants will be contacted as soon as possible in order that participants can make arrangements for travel and, where applicable, visas.

PUBLICATIONS: New Critical Stages Available

The latest edition of Critical Stages, the web journal from the International Assoication of Theatre Critics / Association internationale des critiques de théâtre (IATC-AICT), is now online for your perusal. New editor-in-chief Yun-Cheol Kim sent along the following announcement letter, which has been edited for length:

The fourth issue of Critical Stages is finally posted. We am very proud that each issue of the journal has been visited by more than 50,000 readers. Please visit the IATC web journal at http://www.criticalstages.org/, and invite your colleagues, students, and your entire theatre community to visit and make use of it.

Starting with this issue, three major changes have been implemented. New editions of Critical Stages will be posted every June and December. This scheduling adjustment allows writers to address more theatre-oriented events, and provides more time for pieces to be written. A second change, and a rather painful one, was imposed upon us: Maria Helena Serôdio stepped down from her position as editor-in-chief, after having orchestrated the first three issues. Her expertise, competence, and sacrifices have been crucial to the birth of this journal. Critical Stages might well not have been possible without her leadership. As a result of Serôdio’s return to the editorial board, I have taken on the editorship myself; however, I think of myself only as an interim editor-in-chief, serving until we find a replacement.

In my role as the new editor, I have brought about a third set of changes. I have created a section called Special Topics that will accommodate articles or statements on current issues surrounding aesthetic or thematic approaches to the theatre; regional or global theatre arts policies; or other interesting phenomena of social significance to the contemporary theatre. I have also designated Section Editors, who will take the initiative to keep their respective sections dynamic. These changes have worked well, and that can be seen in this issue.

The special topic for this issue is “Censorship in Disguise.” Recently, there have been reports of unfortunate and anachronistic occurrences of political intervention into cultural policies, particularly in Central and Eastern Europe. As President of IATC, I publicized my letters of protest on the cases of Hungary, Belarus, and Serbia, to protect the rights of our colleagues and their freedom of speech in theatre criticism; two of these letters are posted on the IATC website: www.aict-iatc.org. In this time of “Jasmine Revolutions,” censorship of any kind is pure nonsense. Andrea Tompa and Ivan Medenica let us know, through their reviews of Hungarian and Serbian performances respectively, how theatre artists have responded to these actions. Randy Gener has been keeping a keen watch on the agonies of the Belarus Free Theatre and gives us vivid reportage on the censorship and persecution of this courageous political theatre group.

Bringing further breadth to this topic elsewhere in the issue, Jean-Pierre Han’s review of the Iranian theatre and Alvina Ruprecht’s essay on the Cuban theatre are also written with reference to the notion of “censorship in disguise.” Taken all together, we have such a rich cluster of articles on the first special topic, both within and without the section itself, that they serve as a mandate for us to fight together against this evil practice, with vehemence and commitment.

The sections devoted to Interviews, Essays, Conference Papers, Performance Reviews, Book Reviews, and Critics on Criticism feature a broad and diverse collection of global perspectives on theatre and theatre criticism.

We are proud to present this fourth issue of the journal, which contains so much interesting work. Unfortunately, we live in a time when theatre criticism is being radically and rapidly reduced in stature. Let’s set aside, though, any pessimism, or even defeatism. Instead, we should raise our voices and speak up for the sake of theatre criticism and theatre art. Critical Stages proves, for the fourth time, that it serves this crucial cause very well.

Yun-Cheol Kim,
President, IATC
Editor in Chief, Critical Stages/Scènes critiques

CALL: Strindberg’s Legacy (Sweden)

From DAVID GEDIN of the Strindberg Society

August Strindberg
(ca. 1900)

August Strindberg died in 1912 at the age of 63. Since his death Swedish and international scholarship have made the perspectives on his time and his work considerably broader and deeper.

How do we look upon his works today: his plays, his poetry, his prose, his aesthetical essays on theatre, his social and political criticism, his texts on science and his own paintings? How do we understand the society in which he lived? Strindberg’s Sweden was a country characterized by rapid industrial development and thorough cultural changes. How do we understand Strindberg’s relationship to this new society?

Every literary current has had its own interests and its own view of Strindberg both as a private person and as a writer. In what way has the conception of Strindberg and the use of his ideas changed through the years? From a working class hero to an avantgarde icon, from a psychological enigma to a corpus of texts?

In cooperation with the Strindberg Society, Stockholm University invites all interested scholars, critics and theatre workers to the XVIIIth International Strindberg Conference between May 31 and June 3, 2012 on the theme of “The Strindberg Legacy.” Submission of abstracts to roland.lysell@littvet.su.se before October 1, 2011.