Malkovich vs the nationalists: Theatre under attack in Bulgaria
On why Bulgarian nationalists disrupted the recent premiere of a new production directed by John Malkovich in Sofia.
This week’s newsletter is a little late again, due at least in part to my spending an unreasonable amount of time on cross-Balkan buses.
While I’m writing this from Prishtina, Kosovo - where seemingly 85% of Europe’s Christmas lights are on display in the centre of town, leading to some serious sensory overload when walking around in the evening - the week’s edition concerns recent events in Bulgaria, where the premiere of Arms and the Man at the Ivan Vazov National Theatre in Sofia was disrupted by an angry crowd of nationalist protestors. What was it about this fairly innocuous-looking production of a play by George Bernard Shaw that could have triggered such vitriol?
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On 7th November, angry protestors gathered around the Ivan Vazov National Theatre of Bulgaria. They were there to protest the premiere of a new production of George Bernard Shaw’s anti-war comedy Arms and the Man directed by John Malkovich (yes, that John Malkovich, who’s a fairly regular presence on the European theatre scene).
The theatre had anticipated some form of reaction - Shaw’s play is set during the 1885 Serbo-Bulgarian war and the protestors were claimed it insulted the memory of Bulgarian soldiers - but they weren’t expecting so many people to show up or for the atmosphere to be so volatile. The protestors threw garbage bags, they threw eggs and even threw punches. You can see some of the footage here. The premiere eventually went ahead in front the 60 or so audience members who were able to make it inside and a few members of the press. What is it about this production of Shaw’s 19th century comedy that prompted such an extreme reaction?
The protestors consisted of members of various nationalist groups, according to this Radio Free Europe piece and this Balkan Insight article, as well as members of two Pro-Russian political parties (one of which, Revival, is also behind a legislative amendment banning LGBTQ+ “propaganda” and “gender ideology” in schools, and has also proposed a bill on “foreign agents” similar to one passed earlier this year in Georgia).
“We were expecting a peaceful protest,” explains Vasil Vasilev, director of the Ivan Vazov National Theatre. The funny thing was, he added, that even though the protestors had yet to see the production they had already decided it offended their sense of national pride. It was, he says, “ a classic example of disinformation.”
Discontent about the production had been building since it was first announced. While Arms and the Man is ostensibly set in Bulgaria, it’s not really about Bulgaria. Shaw had never visited the country and chose it as a setting somewhat arbitrarily, rather late in the writing process. Nevertheless, people latched onto certain sentences in the text and began quoting them out of context and circulating them on social media. “The propaganda said we were attempting to make fun of the Bulgarian soldiers,” he says. In the days leading up to the premiere the threats and intimidation were ramped up, they were attacked on social media and calls were made for Vasilev to be removed from his post.
Calls for him to go have been consistent since Vasilev took over as manager. He’s undeniably shaken things up at the Ivan Vazov National Theatre, implementing a series of changes and inviting internationally renowned artists to direct work on its stages, angering traditionalists in the process (especially traditionalists who are now less likely to be employed at the theatre). Earlier this year, the theatre hosted its first showcase for international guests - which I wrote about here - the programme for which also came under scrutiny for being insufficiently Bulgarian. One of the main criticisms against Vasilev is that he is turning the national theatre into an international theatre.
The choice of play was, however, Malkovich’s. When they were in initial discussions about what he might direct for them, Malkovich suggested two texts, Tom Stoppard’s Leopoldstadt, which he had recently directed at the Dailes Theatre in Riga, or Arms and the Man which he had directed in the 1980s, in a production starring Kevin Kline. Despite the fact that this wasn’t even the first time Shaw’s play has been produced in the country – it was staged by Nikolay Polyakov under the title The Chocolate Soldier in 1995, and again in 2000 - they anticipated the fact this choice may be an issue. “The general narrative was that a foreigner, an American, was coming to humiliate the nation,” explains Mladen Alexiev, head of the theatre’s international department. “They said that we are anti-Bulgarian and that we are working for foreign interests.”
Anticipating a backlash, they set out to inform the public about what the play was and what Shaw intended. “This is a romantic comedy that mocks the idealisation of war,” says Vasilev, adding that Bulgarian literature is full of examples of “authors who have mocked or satirized the Bulgarian people a lot more than this play does.”
On the night of the premiere, when it was clear that the majority of ticket holders would not be able to enter the theatre, Vasilev made the decision to have the play streamed live on Bulgarian television. Ironically this meant that a much higher number of people ended up seeing the performance on the night, reaching 5000 viewers, while the theatre seats 800. “It was very, very important that the text that the production reaches the maximum number of people,” he says, “to show that it was never our intention to mock or satirise the Bulgarian nationality.”
The following evening, it was the turn of a group of artists, students and other supporters to gather outside the theatre in a show of solidarity against this act of would-be censorship. Whereas the protestors sought to bar people from entering the building, they applauded every audience member as they entered the theatre. “I think this was a very beautiful gesture,” says Alexiev.
The attacks weren’t over though. Next the nationalists pointed to the fact that the premiere had been scheduled for the 7th November, which is the date of a significant historical battle, and accused them of choosing this day on purpose. Then they questioned how much the theatre had paid Malkovich to direct the play. “We announced that with the first few performances, we already cleared up the costs related to the production,” explains Vasilev.
There are a number of factors at play here. The premiere took place shortly after Bulgarian parliamentary elections in October – the seventh election in the country in the last four years – and calls were growing for them to be declared illegitimate. The premiere provided a convenient distraction, says Alexiev. “We have often been used as a useful distraction of public attention towards the theatre and away from the political processes in the country.”
It’s also worth noting - and this is pretty crucial - that one of the most popular shows in the National Theatre’s repertoire is currently The Hague, a satirical comedy by Ukrainian playwright Sasha Denisova, a play which envisions a future trial against Putin for war crimes. If nationalist groups were to protest this production, it would make their pro-Russian affiliations very explicit, whereas one could argue that the production of Arms and the Man provided them with a convenient alternative way of making their displeasure with the theatre felt.
The protests come at the end of a year in which the far right has claimed a number of electoral victories across Europe and in which there has been a rise in incidents of attempted interference with freedom of artistic expression, including the widely reported dismissal of Matej Drlička as artistic director of the Slovak National Theatre this summer. These events have prompted the European Theatre Convention and over 200 leading artistic figures and organisations to petition the European Parliament to create legislation to safeguard against this kind of infringement of artistic freedom. You can read the open letter here.
All of which means the production itself has been overshadowed by events surrounding its premiere. This is a shame, says Anastasia Dimitrova who worked as Malkovich’s assistant director on the production, “as this was probably one of the most energising experiences that I've had in my entire lifetime.” As a director, Malkovich is, she tells me, “very precise. He is very detailed, and looks very closely at each word of text, even at each syllable.” Malkovich gave the actors “a lot of creative freedom, a lot of creative input.”
This is a methodology that is not widely practiced around Bulgaria, she explains. It took a while for some of the actors to adjust. They are used to being told the way the director would like them to do it, she explains, but Malkovich trusted their instincts in terms of the character. She was impressed by how he “handled all of the issues that we came across throughout the creative process, as well as the events outside the theatre.”
On the day of the premiere, they were really happy to see that the policemen outnumbered the protesters. It was only when they finished the rehearsals, that they saw how the numbers had grown. “It was very scary.”
While the production has received some predictably scathing comments from figures on the right, the general reception has been more measured, with the biggest criticism being that the play turned out to be exactly what they had been telling people it was all along, “a charming 19th century comedy with an anti-war message and not a revolutionary play at all,” says Alexiev.
For Alexiev, this incident is not just a story about nationalist feeling whipped up by pro-Russian groups, but symptomatic of something deeper, a tendency that has been building across the last 30 years and a pattern which is visible throughout Europe. When you have growing social inequality and rampant cuts to funding leading to cultural exclusion, you create an environment in which culture is seen as an object of suspicion, a threat - something that must be suppressed and controlled.
The events surrounding this production ultimately show, says Vasilev, “that a play that was written 130 years ago has never been more valid with respect to our times. It proved that we can stop censorship, but only when we're united, only when we work together.”
This week in European theatre
A round-up of festivals, premieres and other upcoming events over the next seven days
Ever Given – Rimini Protokoll’s latest project, inspired by the moment in 2021 when a container ship ran aground and blocked the Suez Canal, and, with it, much of global freight transport, is a piece about systems and what happens when they collapse. Created by Helgard Haug, with music by her regular collaborator Barbara Morgenstern, it opens in Vienna at the Volkstheater Wien on the 13th December.
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof –Rebecca Frecknall made her name with a lushly atmospheric staging of Tennessee Williams’ Summer and Smoke. Now the director of Cabaret in the West End and on Broadway and Julie for Internationaal Amsterdam, who it was recently announced would be accompanying Rupert Goold to London’s Old Vic when he takes over as artistic director next year, directs Kingsley Ben-Adir and Daisy Edgar-Jones in a new production of one of Williams’ best-known plays. It opens at London’s Almeida Theatre on 17th December.
Cyrano – One of the stand-out shows of this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Australian writer and performer Virginia Gay’s gender-flipped retelling of Edmond Rostand’s play, in which she plays the title role, is utterly joyous and deeply seductive. It opens at London’s Park Theatre on 17th Dec and you can read my interview with Gay about the show here, in which she explains how she rewrote the balcony scene to resemble a female orgasm.
Thank you for reading! You can contact me about anything newsletter-related on natasha.tripney@gmail.com.
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