EKIP– Expert Club for Economics and Politics A Different Opinion
This reading is a short commentary on an article published in the electronic edition of the newspaper Trud dated January 15, 2012.
In the article entitled "Theatrical Chalga Cultivates a New Spectator", the author, Prof. Dr. Georgi Kapriev, discusses the quality of theatrical productions in our country, the audience's attitude towards them and the reasons for the current level of theatrical production. Theatrical reform is highlighted as one of the main sources of the problems.
For greater clarity, individual significant passages from the published text are quoted:
“The driving force behind this process (in which theatergoers lose their taste for art – b.a.) are not the directors, the actors, or even the theater directors. The main reason is the lack of a public and state strategy in culture.” … “The main driver of the chalgization in theater is the method of its financing, the so-called “reform”. Theaters depend directly on the number of tickets sold. The criterion is a full hall and nothing else. There are no mechanisms for supporting avant-garde or generally “risky”, that is, elitist productions or troupes.”
In opposition to the above statements, I state the following theses:
1. People who visit theaters are rational beings and their evaluation is a good enough indicator of the quality of what they see. The very presentation of the productions as aiming to satisfy a mass need leads to the perception of art as a process of supply and demand, in which supply satisfies the needs of demand. Chalga - an epithet for an eclectic aesthetic and lifestyle, is placed at the heart of this demand. The whole comparison is offensive from the viewer's point of view, and theatergoers are anything but to be underestimated.
2. A state strategy that protects elitist productions is not only unnecessary, but even harmful. A good artist does not need support. In my daily work, for example, I do not receive state support for doing my duties well. And my motivation, along with profit, is to prove my capabilities and my positions in competitive conditions. It is they who are evaluated high or low in relation to my performance. My main incentive is the fact that I like and am convinced of what I do, not someone's support. The same situation is in the theater. Of two competing productions, whether they are avant-garde or not, the better one will be the one whose team has put in the most effort, has conveyed its messages to the fullest extent and has more talent. The audience will go there, the hall will be full there. This, contrary to the author's position, not only does not make theatergoers incapable of innovative action - such a situation obliges them to be innovators.
3. Bulgaria will not become a “memoryless cultural desert”. In the theater circles, there are still enough thinking people who do not divide the audience into “chalga fans” and representatives of high culture. For these theatergoers, the phrase “the viewer is always right” is the main measure of quality, and a full house is a measure of success.
In a recent television interview, actor and director Kamen Donev stated that the theater has no problems and that “those who work and are good will get better.” He even called on his colleagues to stop complaining. It is probably the work of theatergoers like Kamen Donev that the author defines as “chalga.” However, I leave the last quoted words without comment.
Finally someone to give a correct assessment of the senseless article of Prof. Kapriev. Unfortunately, many of the Bulgarian "culturologists" and the like, continue to divide "high art" from "pop culture" (or chalga, as they now call it). Lyudmila Zhivkova died, light and finger of a woman, and state policy should focus on creating laws and ground for the development of all types of culture, and not just the "high". This illusion that "the masses should be elevated to culture", and not culture to descend to the masses, is pure communist simplicity, which, as history has shown, cannot be realized.
I am glad that you share our opinion. It is somewhat reassuring in this case that each viewer can well assess whether the theses of Prof. Kapriev's article reflect the truth or not from their point of view and what the role of the state should be with regard to culture.
Unfortunately, the article reflects the truth as seen by 80% of culture-bearers in Bulgaria, who are over 50 years old - they all cry for the time when culture was sponsored, and tickets were under the table at an unthinkably low price. Even now the price is low compared to the same productions in other countries, but the incomes are also lower. Anyway, the "old generation" of people of culture live on their own planet and from their point of view, everything that Prof. Kapriev says is true. Thank God, there are people like Momchil, who sees things from a normal angle and writes about them in a normal way. Thank you again for that.