A TIME OF THE "THEATRE EVERYWHERE"

The IIIrd International Theatre Conference "The Place of the Theatre in the System of Multiculturalism and Universal Values" has taken place in Baku within the "Azerbaijani Theatre 2009-2019" state programme, attended by artists, drama coaches, theatre managers, producers, directors and choreographers from almost all the countries in the world.

Alternative theatre

It is an obvious fact that a period of long-drawn-out crisis has started for the theatre of the 21st century. Audiences have lost interest in the theatre as a form of high art. Consequently, they have begun to prefer mass culture. Why is this happening? It is because time does not stand still and always sets down concrete conditions for those who wish to keep in step with it and be in line with it. The idea of multiculturalism emerged in Europe back in the last century and is the result of the migration of an enormous number of immigrants from other countries.  

One of the aspects of multiculturalism is tolerance. This consists of the need for the parallel coexistence of cultures, so that they can penetrate one another, enrich one another and develop as part of the general human trend towards mass culture.

Multiculturalism presupposes the inclusion in it of the cultural field of elements of the cultures of migrants from other countries. For Baku, which has lived within a system of multicultural values for many centuries now, this situation is an ordinary and familiar one. Here mosques, Orthodox churches and synagogues, people of different nationalities and beliefs, and consequently of different cultures,exist side by side, mutually interacting and complementing one another, shaping a special type of mentality and view of the world and creating a new set of moral laws and ritual traditions.

Naturally, that may have curious results. This applies to the theatre's activity too: the setting up of alternative theatrical collectives and venues. The law on the theatre, which was recently passed in Azerbaijan, envisages the setting up of producer centres and alternative premises in order to seek new forms of dramatic art. The deputy minister for culture and tourism, Adalat Valiyev, spoke about this in his concluding speech. Speakers from other countries also talked about cultivating a multicultural environment in a single cultural space consisting of the cultures or representatives of many peoples and nationalities, appealing with facts and drawing on examples of the activity of theatre theoreticians and practitioners.

The most brilliant representative of the 20th century, who has brought to life the idea of merging cultures on the stage, was Peter Brook, who produced the Indian national epic "Mahabharata". This is one of the world's major works of literature. It is several times longer than the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey" put together. The "Mahabharata" consists of novellas, fables, parables and legends. There are also debates of a religious and political nature, cosmogonic myths, hymns and laments, 18 books in all. It is one of the few works in the world which itself asserts that it contains everything in the world. This is also why it attracted the attention of the great director and reformer.

For him it was a priority to study the nature of theatre action and the inseparable link between those multicultural peculiarities, which might impart meaningful and energetic volume to a work on a stage. Therefore he quite consciously brings together in a single stage project actors who were the bearers of different national theatrical cultures and religious confessions. In this project he used performances by actors from Australia, Belgium, Ireland, Spain, Denmark, Great Britain, Norway, the USA, Sweden and other countries.

It was almost the first experiment in creative activity in this direction. Back in 1968, he started off theatrical studies at the Paris International Centre. Testing the influence of the ideas of [German playwright] Bertolt Brecht, [Russian theatre director] Vsevolod Meyerhold, [Polish theatre director] Jerzy Grotowski, and [French playwright] Antonin Artaud, he was able to stage a performance in the style of epic theatre ("King Lear") and in the style of the Theatre of Cruelty. Studying the nature of the existence of acting, he wrote that the school of Meyerhold stressed the expressiveness of the body. Grotowski developed the trend in his own way and evoked interest in body language and movement.

On the other hand, Brecht insisted that the actor should not be na?ve, should not be a fool, as he was regarded in the 19th century, but should be a thinking, reflecting person of his time. The school of [Russian theatre director] Constantin Stanislavskiy and its followers paid enormous attention to the problems of the actor's emotional immersion in his role. All three directions are needed, Peter Brook said. But that was said almost half a century ago, and today it is regarded as the first attempt to master the world cultural space by combining the outcomes of different theatrical trends. Later on, Peter Brook was to create a show, in which he attempted to combine the multicultural performances of representatives of different theatrical schools. As we can see, this idea has been taken up by others, both by theoreticians and by practicians.

Re-evaluating theatrical stereotypes

Today many European directors (including British ones) are turning to the idea of multicultural staging projects, in particular on the territory of the former countries of the Soviet Union. They come and try to interest in their staging ideas representatives of those national cultures who are prepared to enter into cultural cooperation. In the main, it is proposed that not only a national epic should be attempted. For example, a version could be taken of the century-long existence of the country from its historical, economic and cultural aspect.

Naturally, this would be with the cooperation of the actors, playwrights and choreographers representing the different aesthetic platforms and schools. Today this no longer looks like an experiment. Today this is a standpoint that has been realised, requiring a revision of the aesthetic views, professional attachments to stereotypes, reassessments of all that has been found, invented, developed and used throughout the life of the theatre, as a form of cooperation with the cultural space on a world scale.

And, if the efforts of the theatrical figures of the whole world are aimed at mutual integration, then the theatre of the future can acquire something totally different in its form and the way it sounds. This is because today we are already witnesses to the fact that our European counterparts, in trying to destroy the stereotypes in being attached to the Aristotle-type theatrical box and Aristotle-type drama, are ever increasingly mastering other spaces, performing in them classics or plays in the new wave of drama.These spaces may be in attics and cellars, in ancient ruins and on streets, in small and even tiny rooms, where no dividing line can be drawn in the form of a ramp and it is not possible to hide behind scenery and costumes. The theatre, if it is real theatre, is everywhere. Even, as Stanislavsky, from whom many have turned away today, asserted, an actor on a rolled out carpet may display to the spectator His Majesty the Theatre.

The III International Theatre Conference in Baku made it possible for the participants to see a picture of the actual life of the theatre in the structure of today. The picture is like a mosaic. But there is one link binding it together and that is time. It always dictates its conditions and advances its demands. We have to keep up with the times.