Draama festival highlights need to train theatre’s next generation

Young people need better opportunities to enter the theatre profession, while theatres should take greater responsibility for training their successors, theatre studies students from the University of Tartu write in an article published by ERR. Their review also discusses theatre education, the Uus Põhi theatre laboratory and Juhan Ulfsak’s production “July Snow” at the Draama theatre festival.

The penultimate day of the festival and the final day of its conference began with three intergenerational dialogues that highlighted problems specific to the sector. Producers said young people find it difficult to get a foothold in the profession, while stage technicians said their work was not attractive and that graduates were not moving from schools into theatre employment.

Hiring young people does not mean that more experienced workers should leave, the students wrote. Intergenerational cooperation is also important because it can benefit both sides. Alongside internships, longer-term work experience is needed. The students suggested creating junior specialist positions where this cooperation could take place, arguing that theatres should have an interest in training their own successors.

A panel discussion between representatives of Estonian theatre schools became more of a series of monologues than a substantive debate. There were many participants and little time, so the discussion did not reach its main subject: the outlook for the future.

The discussion nevertheless highlighted a growing fear of failure among young people and a declining willingness to experiment. The students noted that the festival’s first-day presentations had stressed collectivity, and questioned why theatre education remained so isolated. As theatre studies students, they said they wanted more cooperation with practical theatre disciplines and believed they could offer practitioners more than criticism. Such cooperation, they added, could benefit the entire theatre landscape.

At the Uus Põhi theatre laboratory, four directors with limited experience were given the opportunity to work with newer Nordic plays that had not previously been translated into Estonian. The half-hour excerpts were substantial, and each performance was followed by a discussion.

The first three texts, from Finland, Norway and Iceland, were well chosen and formed complete works in their own right. The context around each excerpt was clear, and the right moment from each full text had been selected for performance.

In the students’ view, the Swedish play “Versions” was the only piece that might have worked better as a longer production. It raised an interesting problem but remained superficial. Their favourites were “Garlic Stone” and “The Office of the Missing”, while they praised the use of live music in “I Will Find You”. They described that choice as ambitious for a rehearsal process lasting only a week, but said it worked well. The laboratory was successful in terms of form, they wrote, and similar experiments could be held more often at festivals and perhaps also as part of theatre education.

The students watched Juhan Ulfsak’s production “July Snow” on Friday and Saturday, and said the different audiences produced different impressions. Friday’s audience responded more actively and amplified the positive aspects of the experience, while the quieter Saturday audience left them less impressed.

The production took apart the theatre and abolished the fourth wall, breaking “the rules of theatre”. Well-known faces from Endla theatre first appeared as characters, then suddenly became actors, creating an interesting dynamic. During a Friday discussion, the performers themselves acknowledged that they had wondered where the boundary lay between the actor Kadri and the “real” Kadri.

The students praised the Endla production for its self-irony and honesty. They also expressed hope that Tartu would continue to absorb audiences while preventing Pärnu from sinking into the sea.