TEXTS

TRIUMVIRATUS ANTE PORTAS

by Javor Gardev

Enter into our pain —
We must succeed in this epic task:
Help you without destroying you.
Georgi Tenev, The Citadel

As a child and adolescent, I participated in a number of television and radio programmes, and was part of a theatre company for children. I was also a great collector of actors' autographs, and an assiduous spectator. I went to see absolutely everything: shows that were politically committed, socialist/realist, subversive, existentialist, melodramatic, industrial (!), romantic, and military. I saw music-hall for children, dinner theatre, vaudeville, literary or avant-garde theatre. My love of the theatre was so strong that my parents made fun of me: “We should ask the State to give us a pension to compensate for all the cultural rubbish to which our son was subjected.” My theatrical relentlessness ended up submerging me. So much so that, at the end of my secondary studies, I suddenly lost interest and turned towards philosophy. I surrounded myself with nothing but books (although I also was interested in girls…) I had concluded that the theatre could no longer give me anything; I forgot my desire to make theatre and threw myself into debates about Plato, Aristotle and others.

This ecstasy lasted until the day when, in the early '90s, three theatrical bombs launched at the National Theatre of Sofia - normally so pompous and tedious - shook my certainties. These three shows: Endgame, Lorenzaccio and Krapp’s Last Tape, completely erased my theatrical exasperation. They spoke a new, sacred language - a language open to the world and to thought. My eyes opened to theatre as an event. It was a revelation within the heart, the Mecca, of conventional theatre. It was proof that the road to true theatre is always epic and unpredictable.
At that time, amidst much controversy, the tenants of the old generation were dethroned; these idols suddenly lost their social influence. Replacing them, in the neo-baroque armchairs of transitory celebrity, were people such as Ivan Dobtchev, the director of Endgame, who made the decision to constitute, within the Theatre Academy, an experimental course in stage direction. There would be an entry examination and the directors of the two other already-mentioned shows, Margarita Mladenova (Lorenzaccio) and Krikor Azaryan (Krapp’s Last Tape), would be members of the jury. All of this had a catalysing effect on me and brought forth a powerful cry: a DIRECTOR was what I truly wanted to be. For I wanted to be like them: different.

I presented myself for the entrance exam; I was accepted and then started my extraordinary studies. Some of these studies took place outside of the Academy, with the Sfumato theatre, which rehearsed and produced its shows on the third stage - a very small studio - of the National Theatre. What an unthinkable paradox: the heart of conservatism sheltering the most innovative company in the Bulgarian theatre. Nevertheless, it was a fertile paradox. Until the day of the break-up.
At that time, I was under the influence of another director, Ivan Stanev. I had seen all of his shows, and I had also read his books and translations, although I did not know him personally; he spent most of his time in Germany.
At almost the same time, the only private theatre in Bulgaria with any artistic value was founded: The Strada, directed by Teddy Moskov.

Thinking back on it, Dobtchev, Mladenova, Azaryan, Stanev and Moskov belonged to a group of exceptional people who, in this transitory period, did not disperse themselves in a disorderly search for a social identity.
In an aesthetic and artistic vacuum, an abundance of new theatre companies existed, which were as ephemeral as they were grandiloquent. How many hollow plays were seen and listened to with religious respectfulness, induced by the sole fact that the plays emanated from brand new independent theatres. This same reverse ideology led the public to refuse outright all that originated in the institutions. It was so absurd!
The result was a tense atmosphere in the landscape of Bulgarian theatre, with nongovernmental organizations yielding rather quickly to the official operating mode that they had disparaged. They started to resemble the Ministries of Culture in miniature, grouped in lobbies based not on aesthetic, but ideological foundations. Thus the theatrical world, instead of being liberalized and united to defend its aesthetic interests, was divided into various antagonistic poles, each dependent on various financial or political bodies. Internal wars had given over to social designs.

In Bulgaria, as in many other countries, there is a real cult of youth that is apparent, demonstrative and politically correct. However, at the same time that there is a declaration of support for these young projects, a way is found to trip them up - even when the said projects only flattered the norms established by their forefathers. It seems that this may be a legacy of the Communist epoch, when the powers-that-be only half-heartedly supported theatre (one of the fundamental tools of propaganda) recognizing its subversive potential.

It was in such a context that within the experimental class of Sfumato, our Triumviratus Art Group arose in 1994. It formalized the association of three people speaking the same theatrical language: Georgi Tenev (playwright), Nikola Toromanov (set designer) and myself. From the beginning, we chose not to implicate ourselves in the polemics which we consider fruitless, such as those opposing private and public theatre, tradition and avant-garde, theatre of text and theatre of the body. It mattered little to us who - the State, the Region, nongovernmental organizations, private producers, associations, the European Commission or only enthusiasm - produced the play. Our only aim was to create shows and not to lose ourselves in a sad and tormented egocentrism, or the tyranny of image. Triumviratus also advocated a audacious theatre of the extreme, like a mountain climber tempted by the highest summits, quite conscious of the possibility of the fall and its mortal danger.
Triumviratus was legally formed 6 years later, in 2000. If we had resembled Bulgarian theatre, we would have exhibited an Oedipal hatred for Sfumato. However, reproduction of the vicious circle ruining Bulgarian theatre interested us little. It seems we did not inherit those cannibalistic instincts. The fact that this "family" war did not take place to some extent disappointed expectations of the theatrical community who, like all of Bulgarian society, seem to have a vital need for sacrificial crisis.

Let us remind the layman that Bulgaria is a country where compromise in general, and in particular with respect to foreigners, is a national sport. In this context, it is not surprising that the presence of Theorem in some Bulgarian co-productions has already been interpreted, and will be interpreted in the future, as ambiguous. Any Western-European association is condemned from the start, with the claim that they have come to play the conquerors, to steal the brilliant elements of a national theatre in order to satisfy the insatiable greed of their large festivals. It is an accusation to which Sfumato has already been subjected several times. On the other hand, people are very proud that an investor as morally correct as Theorem could be interested in Bulgaria and support its theatre. This ambivalence places the Bulgarian directors who work with Theorem in a strange position. They are regarded as both partial dissidents and at the same time viewed with a halo of respect due to the esteem given to them in Europe: a hybrid status, symbolically comparable to that given to intellectuals who, like Julia Kristeva, Tzvetan Todorov or the artist Christo, have left the country.
By choosing to be European, and by working in collaboration with Theorem, we know that symbolic excommunication lies in wait for us. But we are ready, whatever the cost, to run the risk. We already have one certainty: that strong sensations lie ahead.

Adapted by Summer Allman