AKO V INŠTITÚCIÁCH VČERAJŠKA HOVORIŤ DNES O VÍZIÁCH ZAJTRAJŠKA?

• Authors: Andrej Maťašík

Title variants

EN

How to speak today of tomorrow’s visions in yesterday’s institutions?

• Languages of publication: SK

Abstracts

EN

In the introduction the author returns to the history and states that the Slovak National Theatre was established in 1920 as a part of the decision to expand the network of professional theatres that existed in the Czech lands after WWI to the east. Legislators decided to socialize all theatres (1948). The socialist state viewed theatre as a powerful ideological weapon. There was no television yet, but a theatre ensemble could get to the most remote villages and, according to those in power, spread progressive ideas through its productions. The social change in 1989 brought no ambition for radical change in the area of theatre. Theatres as allowance organizations always received the same funding as the year before irrespective of the artistic quality of their production. This might have been the reason why theatres were dissatisfied and why theatre-makers were at the forefront of the efforts for social change. Changes in the institutional system of Slovak professional theatre in the 1990s happened without any discussion about the basic issue of the relationship of theatres to a particular group of citizens who are interested in this public service and willing to support it financially. Besides a sociological survey conducted by the National Educational Centre for the National Theatre Centre in the late 1990s, there is no conclusive evidence that Slovak citizens and tax-payers need theatre in order to live a better and fuller life. In principle, the decisions on the existence or non-existence of a theatre should not be made by officials in Bratislava, who allocate the collected taxes, but these decisions should be made by citizens who either want or need a particular theatre to continue its existence or have other preferences. Professor Peter Karvaš always emphasized that the theatre is based on the fact that a live person plays the part of another live person in front of a live person in the auditorium. The state thus subsidizes clearly commercial theatrical projects, which do not need to be denounced, only more clearly labelled and viewed as business activity which will turn things like the popularity of actors and media legends to profit. This would result in a system of minimum three multi-ensemble theatres, one in the west, one in the east and one in Central Slovakia. These theatres should include opera, drama and ballet companies and have a clearly formulated artistic mission. This network of theatres could, of course, be supplemented by commercial theatres that could be operated as non-profit organizations or companies or run by a sole trader, albeit with the risk that they may fail.

Keywords

EN

SLOVAK THEATRE; HISTORY; SLOVAKIA

• Publisher: Institute of Theatre and Arts, Slovak Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Slovenské divadlo (Slovak Theatre)
• Year: 2013
• Volume: 61
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 334 - 343

Contributors

author

Andrej Maťašík

• Ústav divadelnej a filmovej vedy SAV, Dúbravská cesta 9, 841 04 Bratislava, Slovak Republic