The initiative to declare World Theatre Day, which is celebrated on 27 March, was taken by the International Theatre Institute (ITI) in 1961. On World Theatre Day, an international message is sent around the world, written by a selected theatre artist at the invitation of the ITI. The first message was sent to the world in 1962, and its author was Jean Cocteau. The author of this year's international message is Peter Sellars, , theater and opera director, festival director from the USA.
In addition to the international message, which is read around the world (including here) at special theatre events or before performances, many countries also celebrate World Theatre Day with national messages. This year, the Slovenian Association of Dramatic Artists has asked a drama actress Natasha Keserto write a Slovenian message.
Slovenian message on World Theatre Day 2022
How do I start? How do I even write about theater? How do I capture a bit of everything in a few words?
I'm looking for the best strategy. The most precise format. Is it a dialogue? Maybe a fictional one, directly with the theater. Or I could write him a letter – the most loving and angry one at the same time. Maybe I could make a list of everything theater is. My first endless list about theater with an elegant punchline at the end. But maybe I should still approach the matter academically – add a definition or two, maybe some justification. A philosophical essay?
I have to choose between all the images of theater, some of which I don't even know yet.
So should I think about theatre through questions? And again I run out of words or there are too many and they scatter over a thousand pages. And yet I want this to be a composition with counted words that would inspire and make us think. Concrete, so that we would vividly imagine the words and thoughts and these words would be weighty and sincere; above all sincere. Words and thoughts that would be an event.
So where to start?
With an actress at large under quotation marks?
With the actress kg – kobayagi?
There is less and less freedom for guests.
"Three days is enough for each guest."
So should I write about lack? About lack of space, time, resources, roles and texts? About the fact that we also need space for experiments and mistakes? Aren't mistakes part of learning and growth?
Should I write about loosening, tightening, closing, covering, limiting, interruptions, cancellations, about cuts and about "a meter and a half", about protective gloves, about visors... About the fact that the theater was still playing a year ago?
But should I write about this when I think about theater today? Maybe it would be more appropriate to speak more thoughtfully... Freely, but thoughtfully, and at the same time not calculatedly, because there is no recipe and, in fact, no method.
Just as this composition, this day, and the man within the people eludes me, so too does theatre elude me. At this point, we could listen to the story of the thousand-year search for theatre, but it is too long.
So March 27, 2022 is slipping away. But it's not over yet. There are still plenty of words and more, but enough with words... Hurry, rather take action, so that there will be room for one more moment of freedom. Reinvent yourself and in return you get a miracle! An event of a newly invented moment of freedom for all of us.
Let's step into a bird's eye view for a moment, it always has its own charm and its own power. And I step back and can finally start playing...
"It's evening, we're hanging somewhere above the city, in an hour or two the streetlights will come on, the traffic on the ring road has finally calmed down, we see people who have come home, maybe we even catch a glimpse of ourselves. In a minute or two they sit down, eat, take a quick shower, change. Maybe someone is staying in the city and meeting for a late lunch and drinks, looking at their watch so they don't interrupt and forget the time. Maybe someone has come from afar and isn't here often. They're getting ready. Quite a few of those we're watching have a common goal. They gather in front of the theaters. They're greeted by hostesses and hostesses, dressed in uniforms – they've been waiting for them. The stage is washed, the props checked, the costumes ironed, the mask ready, all the noble murmuring, gathering, and preparation has died down."
We are here. Together. We have taken our time. We have gathered because we believe that a miracle will happen – that theater will happen. A moment of silence. There is only a little left, everything is leading up to the moment when we will give ourselves a play.
Nataša Keser, drama actress
International message for World Theatre Day 2022
Dear friends,
Because the world is so consumed by news every hour, every minute, let me invite us – the creators – to open up to our own reality and our perspective on this pivotal time, of pivotal change, of pivotal awareness, of pivotal reflection, and of pivotal vision. We live in a pivotal period in human history, a time of profound and powerful changes that we are experiencing in the relationship of people to themselves, to each other, and to the inanimate world, and which we can hardly comprehend, articulate, talk about, or express.
We don't live in a 24-hour news cycle, we live on the edge of time. Newspapers and other media are completely ill-equipped and incapable of dealing with what we are experiencing.
What language, what movements, and what images will help us understand the profound shifts and ruptures we are experiencing? And how should we communicate the content of our current lives not as news, but as experience?
Theater is an art form of human experience.
In a world flooded with massive media campaigns, simulated experiences, and dire predictions, how do we reach beyond the endless repetition of numbers and experience the sacredness and infinity of a single life, a single ecosystem, a friendship, or a light in an unknown sky? Two years of Covid-19 have clouded people's senses, constricted their lives, severed ties, and placed us at a strange zero point of human existence.
What seeds need to be sown again in these years, and what are the invasive species that have grown and must be completely and definitively eliminated? So many people are on the edge. So many outbreaks of violence, irrational or unexpected. Many established systems have shown themselves to be structures of continued cruelty.
Where are our rituals of remembrance? What do we need to remember? With the help of which rituals will we finally be able to reflect on and embark on a path we have not yet taken?
The theater of epic vision, purpose, healing, recovery, and caring for others needs new rituals. We don't need entertainment, we need fellowship. We need to share spaces, we need to nurture shared spaces. We need to protect spaces that allow for attentive listening and equality.
Theatre creates a space of equality between people, gods, plants, animals, raindrops, tears and revival. A space of equality and attentive listening illuminated by hidden beauty, kept alive in the close interaction of danger, calm, wisdom, action and patience.
V Sutra flower garlands The Buddha lists ten forms of great patience in human life. One of the most powerful is patience to perceive everything as an illusion. Theatre has always presented this worldly life as an illusion, allowing us to see past human illusions, delusions, blindness and denial with liberating clarity and power.
We are so certain about what we see and the way we see that we are unable to see and feel alternative realities, new possibilities, different approaches, invisible relationships, and timeless connections.
Now is the time to fundamentally renew our thoughts, senses, and imaginations, to refresh our pasts and futures. This is not a task for individuals acting alone. This is a work we must do together. And theater invites us to do it together.
I am deeply grateful for your work.
Peter Sellars
Translation: Barbara Skubic
