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Glasnost Comes to Bulgaria
| Article
# : |
17802 |
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Section : |
THE ARTS
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| Issue
Date : |
3 / 1990 |
2,158 Words |
| Author
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John Elsom
John Elsom is a contributing editor to The World & I. |
The second Theater in a Suitcase Festival in Sofia, Bulgaria, stared out with the best of intentions, "May the endless paths of art," reads the festival booklet, "merge in these days into a general inspiration."
The Theater in a Suitcase Festival is a starting example of cultural glasnost but one which also shows the strengths and the weaknesses of glasnost, and where it fails to achieve its aims. What was needed was either a much greater degree of openness than the authorities would allow or a much tighter control over the entries.
In the West, many fringe festivals happen by accident. No-body plans them. There may be an official festival to which companies are invited; but then students turn up uninvited and put on shows in the streets or in cellars. They stay with friends in the city, they live in the rough -but they can do what they take the proceeds.
To achieve anything like the openness of the Edinburgh Festival, the Bulgarians would have to raise all restrictions on travel, transform their currency - the lev - into something which can be converted into U.S. dollars and deutsche marks, and adopt the capitalist system. Such radical changes still seem a long way ahead, even with the recent departure of Todor Zhikov and all the happenings in Czechoslovakia, East Germany, and Romania.
Modernized Radical
So many hopes have been stuffed inside the Suitcase Festival that the string around the handle is strained to the breaking point. The Bulgarians want this new
... (2000 of 13180 Characters)
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