27 March is the World Theatre Day.
From 1978 a message is delivered before the performance begins on each stage of
each country of the world. The aim of
the theatre day is to draw attention to the importance of theatre - and in a
broader sense - of culture, to pay tribute to actors, theatre workers, and to
ask for the love and support of the audience.
Although there are Roma theatre companies all over
Europe, in the last 42 years the International Theatre Institute never asked a
theatre maker of Roma origin to convey a message to the stages of the world. Year
by year, the Independent Theater Hungary invites an artist with Roma ancestors
to tell his/her message.
Please, welcome the World Theatre Day message of Simonida Selimovič, the
artistic director of the Romano Svato Theatre Company in Vienna.
Simonida Selimovič
“When I think of the theatre, I imagine a world where theatre represents
the citizens, and my culture has a place on stage, too. Unfortunately, this is
not the case, even if the Roma people have been playing a role in the history
of Europe for 700 years.
In the theatre my soul was filled with hope, my mood was upbeat, and I
felt myself at home because I was happy to play. Later, I noticed that there’s few
Roma who can practice this profession. I belong to those who had the courage to
choose this profession. Then I soon realised why I am assigned only stereotyped
roles, why I am always pigeonholed.
The quality of theatre cannot be measured by the number of the audience.
Considering the whole society, theatre is an institute for a minority. However,
don’t we measure the world of democracy by the fate of the minorities living in
it?
Theatre is interesting and good if it explains the world.
After all, theatre is the place where society reflects on life in
general. My attention is captured when I feel that the play deals with serious
questions: love, death, social and political conditions, when I feel personally
addressed as a member of society.
However, I don’t feel addressed at all when the “Gipsy Baron” is on
stage. The language still offends me and many other Roma people. The Volksoper
in Vienna can still make flyers and advertise a play in which there are no Roma
actors at all, and that represents only a corny cliché-like “gipsy image” known
by the majority.
The play ignores not only the undignified conditions in which most of
the Roma lived but also the fact that when the canonised light opera was made, most
Roma groups had settled, did not wander on their well-known ‘green wagon’ from one place to the other,
but they lived together with the majority of society. If the ‘Gipsies’ are
regarded persona no grata of the multi-ethnic state, how is it come that ‘the
outcast’ could become the subject of the entertainer industry in the heyday of the
light opera.
On this basis, this tendency became the authentic vision of society in
the period, and for the art of Romantism it became the intellectual background again
and again to depict the ‘Gipsy lifestyle’,
which satisfied the audience of the Decadent movement both musically and
dramaturgically. The opera is the product of the majority that excluded and persecuted
the Roma for centuries, and this tendency lives on in this light opera performed
in Vienna, too. It’s the well-designed construction of the Gipsy stereotype
that was created by the majority during the centuries.
I ask the question: Why do the cultural policy of Austria, the sponsors
and the banks support such an opera with an unbelievably huge amount of money? The
performance they support doesn’t help the community, the nation, society and
tolerance but popularises racism in the city of Vienna, and what is more, tries
to make it presentable.
I wish a Roma theatre that hasn’t been realised in Vienna yet. A theatre
where we can tell our own stories about our ancestors. Here, in Austria the
stories of the Sinti and the Roma haven’t been told like that of the Jews,
otherwise ‘The Gipsy Baron” couldn’t be on programme now.
Numerous plays and operas could be written based on our stories, we just
need a place to play, recognition, and support from those who owe us. We need places
and theatres that are available for us, where the Roma people can play, work
and show the world their still unknown stories. Many people don’t know the real
‘Roma’ people, they just believe to know them based on the distorted and false idea
they have in their minds.
Let’s make a theatre that includes people who respect each-other, where high-quality
stories are told, a theatre that our descendants are delighted about, too. Let’s
become an example for the next generation so that they can learn from us. Don’t
let them live in an art world that is full of clichés and racism.
