On State Theatres and Minoritarian Theatres: Interview with Andrea Wolfer, Head of the Dramaturgy and PR Department of the German State Theatre in Timișoara, Romania

How is the German State Theatre different from other Romanian public theatres?

Last year, when Timișoara was the European Capital of Culture, international visitors were very surprised that a German-speaking theatre even exists in this part of Europe. We also stand out because we include performances for children and teenagers. The repertoire is dynamic, in terms of including both classical and contemporary plays, and the actors and the staff have a multiethnic and multifaith background. This openess towards diversity and a fostering of curiosity is there at all levels.

How is the German State Theatre quite typical of the Central and East European region?

The multiethnic, multifaith diversity that we have at the German Theatre is characteristic of the Banat region, this Western part of Romania. The theatre transformed very organically from having, at its foundation in the 1950s, an exclusively German-speaking staff, to becoming a more open and ethnically mixed institution. I, along with many of my colleagues, went to the German school, or maybe lived abroad. Through the richness of learning another language, we are in two boats. But very stable and grounded.

This is exactly what I was trying to get at with these two first questions, to parse the curiosity of a public, German theatre in Romania. Even the denomination of “state,” not “national” theatre illustrates an in-between quality.

For more than 300 years, German-speaking theatre was present in Timișoara. From 1953 to 1956, a Department in German language operated at the State Theatre in Timişoara. The German State Theatre as an official institution, however, was founded in 1956. The name „state theater” was intentionally given as a subversive propaganda tool. The German, Jewish and Hungarian theatres offered an opportunity to the Communist government to show solidarity with multiethnic peoples. There’s the Jewish State Theatre in Bucharest, and a few Hungarian State Theatres, and then this one German Theatre in Romania. In Sibiu, there is a German-speaking department of the theatre there, but it’s subsumed under the national theatre. The denomination of “state” theatre indicates that it’s funded by the local municipality, by Timișoara. And for its status to remain recognized at the national level, we must maintain the name of “state theatre.”

In the nineteenth century, the national theatre movement in Eastern Europe played a central role in the fight for autonomy from neighboring empires—Austrian, Russian, Ottoman—by helping to promote local cultural identities and political allegiances, typically based on a notion of a shared language distinct from the hegemonic one(s). So while there’s a positive aspect of nation building to the Romanian national theatre institution, it also contributed to promoting rigid and exclusionary notions of identity. How does the German State Theatre place itself in this context, historically and presently?

From its foundation, the German Theatre pursued two directions. One was serving the needs of the Communist regime, so following a particular agenda of what directors to invite, what plays to stage. And the second goal was to preserve the German identity and language. During Communism, there was a lot of subversive content on stage, because the censors did not speak German. This created a tight community, a sort of bubble where language was a resistance tool, and where the audience gathered together in a safe space. Simultaneous translation was only introduced in the 1990s, but before that the German community was very present in Timisoara.

I sense a kind of nostalgia from a lot of theatre people for the time where the theatre had a clear mission like that, to be a safe space, to speak to power. Then, after 1989, when theatres lost that mission, it was hard to find another similar strong purpose in society.

I feel like the safe bubble is slowly taking shape again because of what’s going on in the world. For us, the German Theatre was some kind of avant-garde theatre at the beginning of the 2000s because it showcased contemporary drama and had collaborations with foreign directors, which wasn’t happening as frequently as it does now in Romania. In the meantime, many Romanian theatres are trying to stay in touch with Europe and the world, searching for new subjects and for ways to attract new audiences. This builds a new kind of solidarity, where also minority theatres fit in, without being tied to a national agenda.

Is the German State Theatre actively trying to resist the highly polarizing, populist far right movements that are regaining traction in Romania and Europe?

Yes, because for us holding on to a German identity was never about keeping an identity in the sense that appears in German and Austrian nationalist discourse. It’s about holding on to a richness and a diversity of people. This opens a different kind of discussion about identity, reframing it as coexisting. Today the German Theatre addresses the country-wide 1% German minority, together with the audience that learns German in school, but doesn’t really have German as their first language, to those that don’t speak German at all. The theatre welcomes a mixed audience with the help of surtitles in Romanian and English.

I’m interested to hear more about this, since the population of the German-speaking minority in Romania has been steadily dwindling since last century. During Communism, many emigrated to Germany. If in the 1930’s, just in Timiș county where Timișoara is the main city, there were almost 200,000 people of German ethnicity, that number has plummeted to under 5000, according to the 2021 Romanian population census. By comparison, there are about 484,000 ethnic Romanians, 21,000 ethnic Hungarians and 12,500 declared Roma in Timiș county. How has the German State Theatre’s position in society shifted in this demographic context?

After the Revolution, the theatre was empty. There were performances with one single guest sitting in the audience. The theatre also lost most of its actors and members of the technical staff. But the theatre reinvented itself, and the urge to continuously do so became one of its characteristics. In 1992, to help rebuild itself, the German Acting School was founded in Timișoara and it’s still active, it’s part of the Faculty of Theatre and Music at the West University. A new repertoire was fashioned, a new ensemble was slowly rebuilt. Since we also had to rebuild the audience, we also initiated new collaborations. A tipping point in the theatre’s recognition on the national level was Victor Ioan Frunză’s production of Eugen Ionesco’s The Chairs. From then on, we continued developing as a 21^st century contemporary European theatre, fostering engagement with new collaborators, new texts, and festivals.

What is the current relationship between the German State Theatre, the Romanian state, and then the larger context of the European Union?

National and state theatres are very bureaucratized, so if you don’t have a team with a strong vision, it’s easy to get lost in this administrative level. You need a strong vision of the identity of your theatre. The German Theatre can always cling to this linguistic aspect, and we orient ourselves towards the larger discussion topics on the continent. The tendencies to have a rigid repertoire, to have a conservative take on what a theatre is supposed to be, are still present in Romania. But in the last years a lot of smaller theatres have done an amazing job in reinventing themselves under the leadership of emerging managers. There is a lot of courage, yet it takes some more time before the theatres can interconnect to become a movement.

Last year was a very good year for us financially because Timișoara was the European Capital of Culture and we were very spoiled. It was a good feeling to have the money to do a repertoire and a festival, the European Theaterfestival Eurothalia, according to our wishes. The downside comes this year, when the budget is cut and you need, again, to reinvent yourself. But there’s pro and cons and the pro part is that you can get creative with your team. Of course, we lack the money to reinvite companies and theatres from around Europe for a festival, but we are filling the gap. The bridges we established last year are staying alive and we still have collaborations, just not concentrated around a festival.

So in a usual year your full budget comes from the municipality?

We also partner with associations in Romania and abroad, we coproduce and cofund shows with other theatres, there’s also the Department for Ethnic Relations, a subdepartment of the Ministry of Culture, and every year we apply to sources of funding. The staff salary is covered by the municipality. But it’s an ongoing planning of collaborations and partnerships to find financing for shows.

Has the trend been that the budget from the municipality has been shrinking and you have to rely more and more on grants? How does that affect the theatre?

Yes. It postpones of course a lot of talks, ideas, plans, and collaborations. Since we always find out about the budget in February, always in the middle-end of the season, we can never rely on it. Every year the budget fluctuates. There’s no real financial solution for the long term. It deters a lot of artistic projects.

Why do you think the budgets for the theatres are shrinking?

This year is very clear why. Since it’s election year, the money goes towards campaigning and the promotion of politicians. But I don’t want to go that much into these sort of political aspects. The Romanian political scene is shady right now.

The theatre is also not a very lucrative business.

 Yes, there’s a very capitalist way of seeing the profit of a theatre. You can’t really measure like that the impact of culture, education, the change that you create through theatre. Yes, you can measure audience numbers. But if you have a small house, like the German Theatre which has 120 seats, you can’t show the municipality, look, every night we have a full house of 300 spectators. You can’t quantify the outcome of theatre like this. Politicians make our lives harder by only wanting to see the numbers. Our educational programs with local schools bring a clear social benefit, yet this constant knowledge exchange is unmeasurable in terms of numbers.

Does the German State Theatre have other significant partnerships with other cultural institutions, civic organizations, economic or political agents, and to what purpose?

We’re always in contact with the German Democratic Forum, a political party in Romania that overviews German minority groups and German-language institutions. It’s a very important network of people and cities that enhances our visibility and helps us reach German-speaking audiences Romania-wide. They also have funding for projects in different regions. They help us keep a link with the German-language theatre in Sibiu. We rely on their support to activate such connections.

Since the Roma are the third most populous ethic group in Romania, why do you think we don’t also have a Roma State Theatre?

Yes, and also, why isn’t there a Serbian theatre in Timișoara, since there’s a big Serbian community here? We in the German Theatre are looking forward to seeing the Serbian acting department develop into a theatre. But yes, why is there a German theatre, and not a Roma one? The answer is political, but I can only speculate, and only about this Banat region. Maybe because there isn’t a strong coagulation of the various Roma traditions into one clear movement that lobbies for itself where we can say this is Roma culture in Banat.

A group of Roma theatre artists did initiate a petition to the government asking for a state theatre, but the petition was ignored.

What I know for sure is that in the Timișoara region there are a lot of Roma groups, Romani and Romanian and Hungarian speaking, which makes it hard for the majoritarian citizens to point it out as a particular culture. We know of so many Roma communities that identify themselves through a different language, or a particular traditional profession.

But wouldn’t that be a better model for a 21^st century state theatre, one that is not based on one particular language or a monolithic identity, but is inherently anti-national and pluralist?

Yes, but unfortunately our communities don’t interact in productive ways, there’s a gap somehow. Timișoara is also getting very gentrified, and follows an invasive housing trend where poor people and poor Roma people are getting kicked out of their houses.

So the gap is actually growing?

Yes. So we would like a Roma theatre, we are pleading for it, but our worlds need to somehow collide. I, for example, need to have a better grasp of how a collaboration would work. And I am sure it would work well. This perspective of having in Timișoara also a Roma theatre and a Serbian theatre and a Jewish theatre would be a perfect example of how a European city has to look now. Timișoara has the potential and the cultural legacy that can enable it to become such a city, while the theater can champion such interculturalism. The people are there, but not all of them are represented culturally yet.

What other 21^st century functions can a theatre institution play in Romanian society?

A theatre like the German Theatre should continue being a link, bringing together East and West, Balkan and German heritages. In the future, I would like these not to be opposite poles, but in constant flow of people and ideas and working together. The theatre of the future should be against borders, geographical, cultural, and those made with hate speech.

Are you also thinking about immigrants and refugees when you say this?

 Yes, and the institutions only have to gain. They lack personnel. We need to look out and always be aware of the demographic dynamic of a city. We at the German Theatre work with people that don’t speak German, so we know that there are solutions to language barriers. Theatre is the best example to integrate different groups.

Since you mentioned gentrification and we have spoken about the Roma and about immigrants, a significant number of whom come from modest financial backgrounds, I’m curious to know if the German Theatre is thinking about outreach not only across languages, but also across class?

Especially backstage, we always had colleagues coming from a poorer or a different background, and we always strived for solidarity and to include everyone in the team.

Where would you like to see the German State Theatre in 10 years?

I’d like to see more younger audiences and the theatre making constant contact with them and what is relevant to them. So I’d want to create this safe space again, specifically for kids and young audiences. I am interested in pedagogy and I’m observing the cognitive disruptions caused by digital media overconsumption. But young audiences also can be more open to other groups and social structures. I see that when the theatre engages them, when they get involved in the process and behind the scenes, it really sparks something in them that could lead to major changes. Theatre teaches patience, the ability to follow a story, to formulate questions about the experience. If you also create in the theatre a safe space, a casual space, that gives the opportunity to talk about the questions and experiences without judgement, we practice tolerance.

Then in Germany now there’s a lot of talk about de-hierarchizing theatres and having them run as collectives. I would like to see this in Romania, but it would be difficult. It’s hard to imagine all these structures and hierarchies torn apart. But it would be an ideal way of doing theatre in the future. How do you work towards it? Would it begin with a first theatre starting to run differently, or does it require an overhaul of the whole current organization across all the public theatres in Romania? Would this model still have theatre directors or would everything be co-directed and co-built? These is a debate that interests me and my colleagues from The German Theatre team and from other theaters.

Are you saying that the main impediment is structural, having to do with the institutional framework, and that the jobs that now exist in the theatre are built to operate in a hierarchical manner? Or is it the people that want and need to work in this way? Or is it the theatre as an art form that can only get made in a rather authoritarian manner?

I think the main impediments are the framework and the mechanisms that exist now. I’m sure that if you find a new way of working, you can dismantle the underlying structures. In the long term, it’s important to learn how to co-create together, and then you can burn things down. But you can’t burn them down first, in my opinion. This may come from the pragmatic, bureaucratic part of my brain.

Let’s say that the state would give a generous, reliable, no-strings-attached, fixed yearly budget to a group of diverse theatre-makers selected randomly from Romania, through a lottery. And the state would just say, take this money, do whatever kind of theatre you want to make, we don’t need you to fill any paperwork, track any spendings, or justify any decision. What kind of theatre do you think they would found?

Hmm, tough. I would like to say “amazing, let’s do it now!”. But now my enthusiasm is put in check. I wish you’d asked me this question ten years ago! Now my pragmatic side is thinking that there has to be somehow a direction regarding format, aesthetics, budgets planned across a year. It doesn’t have to be one leader planning everything, one person’s vision. I can see it doable in a theatre that has proven that they can really create, they can get organized, they can transform the money into something that makes sense from A to B and turns an idea into a a collectively shared experience.

 

 

This journalistic material has been realized through a grant Energie! Burse de Creație funded by the City of Timișoara, through the Center for Projects. The material does not necessarily represent the position of the Center for Projects and is not responsible for its content or the way in which it may be used.