Tartu Uue Teatr creative director Ivar Põllu said in an interview with Vikerraadio that the theater world would have been hit by a crisis due to overproduction even without the pandemic. At the same time, Põllu hopes that the crisis will push more comprehensive themes out of theaters.
Põllu will celebrate his fiftieth birthday next year. Although Põllu himself still has no plans to celebrate the round number, in 2024, under the leadership of Põllu, the Hungerburg2024 theater festival will be held in Ida-Virumaa and the Genialisti ensemble will gather for the last concert. “Maybe it’s unconsciously like this, because consciously it wasn’t planned like this,” commented Ivar Põllu in the Vikerraadio program “Lõpp hea, sukas hea”.
Since in the world of theater time is calculated by seasons, it is difficult for Põllu to summarize the past year, but in the 2022/2023 season, according to Põllu, Tartu Uues Teatr has set many new goals. “We tried new things and a lot of things, as always with risks, might not work and a lot of things didn’t work. /…/ Let’s just say it wasn’t the season where we could be sure we would become terribly famous and rather we did things that we have never done before, for example a joint production with Vanemuine theatre, for a long time there has been talk about why Tartu theaters do not cooperate. Now it is done. Both theaters are satisfied and now it will probably never happen again”, Põllu joked.
According to Põllu, the crises that happen in the world will surely eventually reach the culture in some way. The determining factor is people’s attitudes towards various topics. At the same time, cultural production via the Internet and broadcasts has also been put to the test during the coronavirus pandemic, which according to Põllu no one wants to see again so soon. “The coronavirus crisis came exactly at the moment when everything was already collapsing. The crisis would have come anyway, because at that point the overproduction was so crazy. All the theaters were already held hostage by the public,” thought Põllu.
While people are looking for lighter entertainment, Põllu points out that the most successful productions of the last year have been tragedies. “They were big, fat tragedies. In a certain sense, people want to experience exactly this. It’s paradoxical, but it’s like that. It’s also the Estonian theater’s most direct reaction to the war. Productions that are very current affairs or documentary are not cross the threshold, but two great ancient tragedies have intersected,” Põllu said and hopes that more comprehensive themes will die out due to previous crises. “We’re no longer trying to hide the fact that this is a tragedy. It’s very refreshing,” he said.
According to Põllu, the reason why the most current stories do not make it to the stage lies in the previous painful experience of the world of theatre. “Yesterday I saw Hardi Volmer’s film, which reminded me that there had once been a singing revolution, in which it was also true that what happened on the street was much more exciting than what happened on stage. Even then , the theater “I tried to indulge him. It was really ridiculous. I think somewhere, in the back of the mind, the theater industry remembers how ridiculous it was to make perestroika productions. They don’t want to talk about it. Maybe that’s why theater doesn’t “Don’t try to be so current. Rather, theater can generalize, very generalize, or move forward a little,” Põllu explained.
“The theater is terribly inert. A film even more so, with an enormously long planning. But in the theater, to have a great premiere, it takes at least a year of work. It’s not just that people learn parts or the director thinks. There is also a lot of planning from an organizational point of view so that different people from different organizations come together and everything works,” Põllu said and added as an example that “Serafima and Bogdan” took almost 2 years of preparation Work.
Põllu admits that difficult times lie ahead for culture, but at least the Tartu Uus Teater has taken this into account. At the moment, the theater creatively managed by Põllu is still very much alive. “The contracts have not been signed yet, but it also seems that we will survive. Only the growth can no longer happen. We cannot even continue like this. It is as if we read in the newspaper that the city of Tartu and the cultural institutions have now been able to confirm a certain salary, but for this reason, to maintain the existing one, operations must be optimized, then we are in the same situation,” Põllu noted and said that the New Theater of Tartu also received a fixed subsidy for three years.
However, Tartu Uue Teatr’s ticket sales have decreased, but Põllu does not place the blame solely on the sacrifices caused by people’s economic situation. “We have also changed our advertising strategy. We don’t advertise like before. On the other hand, we also have a completely different repertoire. It might also make people think more who don’t know whether I’m watching this thing now or not. Also, since we also do this flow of tickets, like other theaters do, this blind pre-purchase has also decreased a lot. The question of whether I have the money at that moment has emerged more,” explained Pollu.
2023-12-28 12:00:00
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