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 festival to be modern, cosmopolitan, and radical. They want it to keep them in touch with the outside world and to establish their place among other art- and “peace-loving" nations; but what it actually demonstrates is that they are still trying to catch up with what was happening in the West in the 1960s.
It all seems very unfair. In common with most other Slavic countries, the Bulgarians love their theaters and spend a great deal of money on them. Only nine million people live in Bulgaria, but they have thirty-seven professional drama theaters, nineteen puppet companies, and eight opera houses, all heavily subsidized. This is a high art-to -body ratio, and according to official statistics, there are no less than 24,250 amateur art organizations. If the vitality of the arts matched the statistics and followed government instructions, Bulgaria would have one of the richest cultures in the world.
Indeed it is rich, but not necessarily in ways that can be measured by statistics or would be recognized by the authorities. Some of its puppet companies, for example, are excellent, with beautifully crafted little dolls. Bulgaria also has a distinctive brand of rough puppetry - dolls made from rods, planks of wood, and anything which comes to hand, which are used by actors in telling stories. One such company, Dora Gabe Puppet Theater from Tolbuchin, presented an engaging performance at the festival, Some Can, Others can’t, about why only some of God's creatures grow wings.
Not For Children
Not all of the puppetry is for children. The Sivina Group excels in transforming handkerchiefs, scarves, and balls
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