The New theatre of the Baltics: from Soviet to Western influence in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania

ENEven for someone unusually curious, with a lively interest in modern drama and the stage, the question arises: why take the trouble to learn about the theatre in Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia, three very small countries, each with a different and difficult language unrelated to the major linguistic families of Europe? Jeff Johnson, a writer and scholar who has visited Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia, experienced the theatre there, and talked with the major artists, feels that the effort has been well worthwhile, and in this book he shares his discoveries with the reader. Among the many reasons that Johnson advances for us to pay serious attention to the theatre in Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia, the one that strikes me as the most compelling and interesting is this: the micro-stories of these theatres' struggle for existence in the face of annihilating pressures offer us paradigms for understanding broader issues and general problems confronting cultural institutions in the twenty-first century. The New Theatre ofthe Baltics is less a handbook or tourist guide than a speculative investigation into the means by which small countries must fight to retain their cultural identity. How, Johnson asks, has each of the Baltic countries attempted to solve the problem of keeping its theatre alive and relevant through a series of dizzying changes and upheavals? First colonies of Tsarist Russia, then tyrannized by Nazis and Bolsheviks during World War II and the Cold War, the Baltic countries were finally liberated in the 1990s only to be inundated by Western popular culture and lost in a homogenized European Union in which they seem destined to be very minor players.Countries that survived occupation and suppression of native culture under cruel totalitarian regimes now face audiences with a declining appetite for theatre, vulgarized taste, and increasingly short attention spans. Once the theatre in the Baltic states suddenly lost its heroic role as opposition and resistance to communism, it became a prey to market economy, mass media, and rampant consumerism. [...] Johnson shows us what has happened in the Baltic states after the transition from the Soviet-imposed system —with its lavish stare support of the arts, containment and censorship, and tolerated safety-valve dissent— to independence and adaptation to the Western economic model and assimilation to capitalism. The sudden absence of state financing and sponsorship characterize the trauma of privatization. The Baltic states have produced a number of internationally celebrated directors, to whom Johnson introduces us. He lets us hear them debate what cultural policies their countries should take and what artistic choices they themselves should make if the theatre is to remain relevant. Among the issues debated none is more vital than that of language, both literal and, in the sense of scenic language, figurative. In the times of political oppression, theatre was a means of preserving the language when its use was forbidden by occupying powers. Theatre with its shared language and culture had been a means of unifying the population and giving a sense of national identity. Now the language was perceived as an obstacle making the artistic products less exportable.