WORLD THEATRE DAY - 27th March 1998 International Message

Fifty years ago the International Theatre Institute was born in Prague, set up on the initiative of UNESCO and a handful of women and men of theatre.

This year on World Theatre Day we look back on this period, and the Messages written since celebration of this Day began. In this way we can trace the itinerary of our conscience through all the political and social upheavals the world has experienced since the beginning of our organization. Right through the struggle against all forms of totalitarianism for freedom of expression, a stand against apartheid, and solidarity with the theatre community of Sarajevo, up to the advent of the "Global Village" civilization and the new problems of living together and mutual understanding this has brought - artists and poets all over the world have always insisted on the importance of Theatre as a place of dialogue.

Saadallah WANNOUS (1996):

" The Thirst for Dialogue... there is indeed a great need for multi-lateral, multi-faceted and comprehensive dialogue among individuals as well as among societies. The prerequisites for such dialogue are of course democracy, respect for pluralism and control of the aggressive urge in individuals and nations alike. Every time I feel this thirst for dialogue, I imagine it starting in a theatre, then growing, expanding and spreading beyond and beyond to encompass all peoples and cultures... "

Miguel Angel ASTURIAS (1968):

"Wherever there has been drama, words remain: the words of man's discourse with the gods, of man with the world, and of man with man. They are the words of an immortal dialogue ....

In the four corners of the globe, theatre personalities from every dramatic tradition will at this moment be obliterating frontiers, forgetting race, nationality and creed, they will be united in striving for peace as the one and only need in this hour of unprecedented conflict... "

It is this path towards humanity that is being traced out over the decades, seeking universal human feelings above and beyond cultural and political differences.

Jean Louis BARRAULT (1964)

"The essential power of theatre is to put aside everything that separates humanity - differences of race, language, religious or political education - and at the same time to accentuate all that human beings have in common: laughter and tears, joy and sadness, happiness and anguish, in short, all that belongs to the heart. Theatre reveals the heart that all human beings share, and it is this that makes it the best vehicle for peace .... "

Arthur MILLER (1963) :

"The race has always honored exactly those plays which reveal the universal in man"

But in the political context of the epoch, Arthur MILLER continues : " ..The ultimate irony is that as we feel ourselves in the grip of remorselessly destructive forces we cannot find what we have always demanded of our tragic heroes - a point of reconciliation, a moment of acceptance if not resignation, a split second when we recognize that the cause was not in our stars but in ourselves. .... That is why we must have a theatre: for above all, the theatre places man in the centre of the world....... "

During the Cold War years, in the face of what seems to be an irreparable split, the artists' message to the world speaks of the need to join forces for peace and freedom.

Helene WEIGEL (1967) points the way :

"We, the people of the theatre try with our work to make our planet at last fit to live on ...

Ellen STEWART (1975) confirms and encourages : "In the middle of my fears for all our lives and for our future, I rejoice, for I know that theatre artists have already begun to join hands around this world. ... "

But in 1976, Eugène IONESCO tackled openly the problem of censorship. The fact that his message gave rise to much controversy and could not be read in all countries showed how many obstacles were still to be overcome on the path to understanding :

"Truth is to be found in the imagination. The theatre of the imagination is a theatre of genuine truth and is genuinely documentary. No document is ever honest or free for the simple reason that it is slanted in order to serve a particular purpose. The imagination cannot lie. It reveals our psychology, our abiding or passing anxieties, the concerns of man in every age and of the present time, the depths of the human soul .... An artist whose freedom of imagination is threatened becomes alienated. ... The theatre is a construction of the unfettered imagination....Art as the saying goes, knows no frontiers. The theatre should have no frontiers either. Transcending ideological divergencies, caste, race, national outlook and individual countries, the theatre should be a universal country .... No orders for creators! No instructions from governments "

However, the external barriers are not the only ones we need to break down in order to win freedom.

In 1993, Edward ALBEE seems to reply to Ionesco.

"We can banish all government by edict from the planet --- well, we can try to; we can rid ourselves of all imposed-from-without thought control -- well, we can try to -- and still we will be left with the most crushing censorship of all -- the self-censorship of people unwilling (or too uncertain) to take the awesome steps to full self-awareness. Let us remind ourselves of this on World Theatre Day. Let us remind ourselves that the limits of theatre are merely the limits we put on it ... the limits we put on ourselves...."

Already in 1971, Pablo NERUDA, sensitive to the spirit and the concerns of his epoch, had felt that the time had come for the theatre to look for new responses :

"Our times, I think, oscillate with these fluctuations between a truth that does not satisfy and a hope that has yet to take shape. >From the shell of the immense ostrich egg through which the theatre has broken, the rest of us wait expectantly in our seats, from the first row to the last, for the new fledgling to take wing and fly. ...... The walls have clearly fallen down and, in the seven islands of the seven seas that make up the world all want to build, all want to know and recognize, we all want, in the theatre, to see ourselves as we were and as we shall be..... And yet I dare think that we agree on what we all want: a theatre that is simple without being simplistic, critical but not inhuman, advancing like a river of the Andes whose only limits are those it itself imposes. "

So here at last we see the bird take flight and the walls finally crumble, and the determination of the international theatre community, artists and writers, who continue to fight to wake up the world's conscience find in this a materialization of their endeavours.

In 1986, Wole SOYINKA, then President of ITI, invited theatre people all over the world to proclaim that year : The Year of Universal Theatre against Apartheid

"From mere passive withdrawal from that racist environment, dedicate a portion of their creativity to mobilising the moral awareness of their peoples and governments, erecting a permanent bridge of empathy with the violated majority of that corner of the world community... "

But a new world was coming into being and with the increasing globalisation that followed the fall of various political systems, societies and artists found themselves confronted by new issues.

And so in 1994 Vaclav HAVEL was to write:

" ....The world is now becoming genuinely multicultural and multipolar and is only now beginning to seek a new, genuinely just order, one that meets the needs of the present. All of this makes the modern world an especially dramatic place, with so many peoples in so many places resisting coexistence with each other. And yet its only chance for survival is precisely such coexistence... In today's dehumanizing technological civilization, theatre is one of the important islands of human authenticity. That is, it is precisely what - if this world is not to end up badly - must be protected and cultivated... Only man is capable of confronting all the dangers that face the world. His renewed responsibility, his awareness of connections - in other words, precisely that within him which not even the best network of modern computers can replace. The hope of the world lies in the rehabilitation of the living human being "

And Jeong Ok KIM in 1997 to continue :

"During the twentieth century, humanity has made striking progress in material and technical fields, bringing about radical changes in our society. But we know that poverty and hunger still exist and we still see wars and conflicts continuing everywhere. Our sense of powerlessness in the face of this sad reality sometimes leads us to despair. What can we do ? What can the theatre do ? ....... The tragic situation in which we find ourselves is the fruit of narrow dogmatism and intolerance. We think that the theatre can be one means of healing for this illness. This is why we believe more in the importance of listening closely to the words of actors in the theatre than to speeches made by politicians and scholarly theoreticians..... Do not let us forget that our preparations for the new millenium must lead to the creation of a new world......."

Re-reading all these Messages, we can see that while the historical circumstances may change, the combat remains the same, as does the unwavering conviction that the Theatre brings humanity together through dialogue and cannot cease to do so.

Peter BROOK in 1988, ITI's 40th birthday, summed up its role thus:

"The work of linking and informing theatre people of one another's existence has the same logic as the missions of UNESCO and of the United Nations itself. Perhaps the abiding value of the International Theatre Institute throughout all the forty years is that its truth also emerges from the infinite combinations and interactions that it makes possible among the cultures of our world......"

In conclusion, let us give the floor to Jean COCTEAU (1962), first author of the World Theatre Day Message :

"Thanks to the World Theatre Days, the peoples of the world will finally become aware of their respective sources of wealth and work together at the noble task of building a lasting Peace..."

May the awareness that these Messages from the Past bring us of the fight that has already been fought, strengthen us to continue the combat without ceasing.

(Conception and selection of texts, E. Giordani, ITI 1998)