On the transition of Bulgarian theatre, Bulgarian intellectuals, and what is wrong with Bulgarian theatre criticism

Kalina Stefanova, PhD, is director of symposia at the International Association of Theatre Critics and associate professor of theatre criticism at the National Academy for Theatre and Film Arts. She has authored, compiled and co-authored 11 books, among which Who Calls the Shots On the New York Stages?, Who keeps the score on the London stages, Eastern European theatre after the Iron Curtain, and Anns' Dwarves, a fairy tale for grown ups (also available in English). She has publications in 18 languages in 20 countries. In 1998, she taught theatre criticism as a guest scholar in the University of Capetown, South Africa. She has lectured and led seminars on theatre criticism in eight countries – from Russia to Singapore. In 2001, she was the first Bulgarian theatre expert in the Education and Culture Directorate of the European Commission in Brussels.

So, who keeps the scores on Bulgarian stages?

It is nobody because there is no theatre criticism in Bulgaria. This is just unique. We are the only civilised country not in a state of war that hasn't created normal conditions for its critics. Critics have generally been educated to do all kinds of theoretical analysis, but not write and communicate with people – they communicate with encapsulated groups only. And, of course, the press has driven critics out because criticism is considered hard to read. Along with other colleagues, I am fighting against this and have even called my class on criticism anti-theoretical. Not having criticism has put theatre in the position of a person that lives without a mirror. But in Bulgaria there is no actual criticism of anything, so this is a reflection of everything else in society. There is only petty criticism.

A 2003 article in The Guardian said that theatre sometimes reflects the soul of society much better than investigative journalism. What does Bulgarian theatre reflect?
With us, things are not quite so because, as with everything, we are not with the world. We are the other way around. We were like most Eastern European countries in that, immediately after the changes, theatre of the streets took over and the attention to real theatre was to an extent lost. Again as in most other countries we did follow the wave of apolitical theatre as a type of protests against what politics has been doing. But we are not now in pace with  one of the latest rends in world theatre – that of political theatre, which is at the moment at a resurgence everywhere. At the moment, there is a resurgence of political theatre everywhere. The fact that (British playwright) Harold Pinter took the European Theatre Award is telling.

Political theatre is even a fashion, or if not a fashion then an inner need because of the huge amount of lies that politicians have been pouring out the world over. Things became so warped that people need something more documentary. It is not accidental that the so-called documentary dramas are now popular in Europe. People need to hear the truth. Right now, at a moment when political theatre is so widespread, Bulgarian theatre continues to have no clue about politics. Of course, there are some bright exceptions. One of them is Razpluevite dni, directed by Mladen Kiselov (and based on Russian author Alexander Sukhovo-Kobylin's trilogy) in Theatre 199.

Of course, when I say political, I mean social issues, too. So, why is our theatre still apolitical? ... I see it among my students: when some political or social issue is raised, they say: Oh, this is old. So, generally, a sign of equation is put between the political and the totalitarian, which is totally wrong.

A second reason our theatre continues being apolitical is that, both in society at large and in theatre as its mirror, we carry with us this feeling of the uselessness of any act against the status quo. And this sense of stagnation and un-changeability makes us not act.

There is something else that is also interesting in our theatre. A new absurdist drama was born in the beginning of the 90s in the Balkans, and mostly in Bulgaria. That drama was political and reflected reality – because our reality is absolutely absurd – but it is not staged so much in Bulgaria. A very concrete example is Hristo Boichev’s The Colonel Bird. It was staged in key theatres in 30 countries in the world, but not in the National Theatre Ivan Vazov. I actually think it is not staged in Sofia at all, only in peripheral, provincial theatres. There are many examples of the same.

A comparison between 1989 and now is also very interesting: Before ’89, very brave things were told in theatres, with Aesopian language, as they were in the whole of Eastern Europe. You could hear things that people told between them only. In a way, theatre encouraged disagreement. Now, it’s the opposite. There is huge dissatisfaction, but theatre does not reflect that.

Are there any new trends in Bulgarian theatre?
Something very interesting happened in Bulgaria in the mid 90s that is unique: a very interesting symbiosis between drama theatre and puppets. About 10 actors and directors who had graduated puppetry instead of acting for drama theatre: Alexandur Morfov, Tedi (Stefan) Moskov, Krustio Lafazanov, Nina (Dimitrova) and (Vasil Vasilev) Zueka, started to work for drama theatre and change it a lot. That happened especially in the National Theatre and Theatre 199. When I say it is unique I mean that it came about much before, for instance, puppet theatre became a fashion on Broadway, which happened in the second half of the 90s or the late 90s with performances like The Lion King and other more surreal plays by the same director (Julie Taymor). After Broadway, it became a fashion in many other places. Puppet theatre enriched drama a lot and made it more spectacular. But in Bulgaria, it happened long before Broadway, it wasn’t copied.

Would you make a comparison between the quality of Sofia theatre and province theatre? Performances in Sofia are often disappointing.
Theatre is endlessly disappointing. The average level of Bulgarian theatre has fallen a lot. It used to have a very high average level because, after all, the spirit dies last. Eastern European theatre-makers work under very difficult material conditions, but work wonders. And everything goes on.

Culture Minister Stefan Danailov said that theatre has overcome its crisis.
Indeed, we have no problem with the public – which is a big problem for other countries. Our theatre is alive, but our theatre producers made much higher average levels at the end of the 90s. There are phenomena, of course. One of them – Hushove – is immensely good theatre, but it also reflects this apolitical tendency. It is theatre of statements. It states why we are who we are. It doesn’t make this step that big art always makes: to change. Big art always wants to change.

Do more people tend to prefer alternative theatre of the sort that The Red House and Sfumato offer now?
I don’t think there is some sharp tendency. It is of course normal to have one thing and the other, but very few people prefer this.

Did The Red House and Sfumato inject some new energy of the kind characteristic  of nowadays theatre in South Eastern Europe?
I don’t think that Bulgarian theatre has felt that energy. Plus, I think that The Red House and Sfumato exude very different types of energy.

Are there recurring themes in Bulgarian theatre?
Usually, those are reflected in Bulgarian drama. Unfortunately, Bulgarian drama does not make frequent appearances on Bulgarian stages. And the reason is that Bulgarian directors are not very interested in staging it; especially the young directors. It is much easier to shine with a revamped classic. This is a well-tried recipe all over the world. The Askeers (Bulgarian theatre awards) already started publishing anthologies of Bulgarian drama, but this is only an endeavour, while a whole policy is needed. Our theatre does have things to show, but it is not sufficiently known. It is the state that has to start building its image abroad, along with the image of all other spheres of Bulgarian culture, as it is in other small countries. But our state hasn’t been doing that for years now.

Is there xenomania in Bulgarian theatre?
Oh, this is characteristic of everything in our society. There is so much quoting from foreign things that I have no words to express, and they say that it is some form of innovation, but it isn’t. It was very funny when, after 1989, some experimenters appeared and said that they were doing this or that for the first time. And it had been done in the 60s.

Professor of the history of medieval philosophy Georgi Kapriev, who was also part of the Askeers jury, said that Bulgarian drama always portrays the Bulgarian intellectual as confused and incapable of fighting.
Our intelligentsia is not brave enough. I read something very good by Dimitur Tomov recently: that we are a people of loners. He said it very well. There are incredible personalities among us, yet collectively we do not “perform” quite well because we cannot overcome the fear to stand by another person who could have a different position from ours. Even if we have common views on main issues, which are of interest to all of us. This could be observed in politics as well. The intelligentsia is the driving force in all countries, but not here. On another note, intelligentsia also bears a huge fault in letting the chalga overcome our society. After the changes, the intelligentsia looked down upon everything that did not meet their standards of highbrow art. And they overlooked the basic fact that the wide public is the basis of theatre and all the rest of the arts. And by looking down with distain, they let a vacuum appear, which was filled by something lower than average. In this way, they deprived the public of choice, leaving it to choose between lowbrow art and some snobbish things that are not likely to be understood.

What is the driving force in Bulgaria?
I would rather say what is the main stagnating factor  - it is our renowned Bulgarian tolerance, which, at one point, becomes stupidity. The stupidity to let all absurd things that happen in Bulgaria, happen.

Which is the best thing that happened to Bulgarian theatre in the past years?
That it continues to exist and that it has a public.

What do you think of the Bulgarian public?
There is still this timidity in it. We have that in our genes. We have been very scared for centuries. You see, in all shows that demand the public’s participation, if there is a question from the scene there would be a mass chorus of answers in other countries, but here somebody would say something timidly, and that’s it.