| The grand opening of the festival was disrupted Once a year, the quiet provincial town of Avignon, near the walls of the ancient papal residence, turns into the center of world theatrical life. Thanks to Jean Vilar, who organized the festival here in 1947, every summer the city becomes a huge stage. In the courtyard of the papal castle, where 20 years ago an auditorium was built on the model of an Elizabethan theater, and in its surroundings, actors of all nationalities and creative styles perform. However, this year Avignon is in a fever: near-artistic problems again turned out to be more important than artistic ones.
The 2003 festival ends the era of Bernard Febvre d'Arcier, the great director who turned Avignon into the theater capital of the world. He led the festival for a total of fifteen years - from 1979 to 1984 and from 1993 to the present. French Culture Minister Jean-Jean Ayagon announced his resignation last summer and began looking for successors at the same time. The candidates considered were two former French ministers of culture, Catherine Tasca and Jacques Lang, the Belgian choreographer Alain Platel, and the well-known director Christophe Marthaler (both of the latter declined the offered honor). As a result, 35-year-old Vincent Baudriller, who worked with Febvre d'Arcier for ten years and was his closest assistant, became the new director of the Avignon Festival. This does not foretell any fundamental changes and, no matter how the French leftists seethe about the “bourgeoisness of the Avignon mainstream” and the “lack of discoveries,” it is most likely for the better.
When the program of the current festival is called “the testament of Febvre d'Arcier,” he himself objects very categorically. Nevertheless, the 57th Avignon Festival really looks like a kind of summing up and partly a meeting of old friends. Peter Brook will show here the play "The Death of Krishna" - a continuation of his monumental "Mahabharata" (Brook's six-hour film on "Mahabharata" has just been shown by the Culture channel). Ariane Mnouchkine - new play "The Odyssey. The Last Station". Especially for the festival, Eric Lacacade revives Chekhov's "Platonov" - this performance opened the 56th Avignon Festival and became one of the symbols of the "reign of Bernard the Great." Bartabas, opened by Febvre d' Arcier twenty years ago came with a play that had just been shown in Moscow called “Horses of the Wind”. The ecumenical activities of Febvre d'Arcier, who consistently invited traditional theaters from Japan, Korea and India, as well as groups from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union to Avignon, have not been forgotten: Lithuanian Oskaras Korsunovas will show his version of Romeo and Juliet at the festival.
And all this theatrical splendor is in danger. The festival may fail because of the technical staff. Low-level workers (contract actors, lighting technicians, installers, etc.) decided to hold a protest. The status of such workers under the trade union convention stipulates that each year they are required to work a certain number of hours at various temporary events such as festivals in order to receive a substantial benefit the rest of the time. This year, the French government decided to tighten the conditions for issuing benefits, and the leaders of the theater unions, including the large pro-communist CGT union, gave everyone the signal to “pump up your rights.” Several traditional summer festivals in the south of France have already been canceled due to the strikes. Aix-en-Provence and Montpellier are on strike, premieres at the Paris Opera and the Comédie Française have been cancelled. In a show of outrage at government decisions, a thousand people carried a coffin filled with musical instruments, reels of film and theatrical masks through the streets of La Rochelle, where the film festival is taking place, last Saturday. The Avignon festival was also under threat of complete or partial disruption.
The decision to hold a protest was made on the evening of July 7 at a meeting of trade union representatives. The strike has so far been scheduled only for July 8 - the day of the official opening of the festival. French Culture Minister Jean-Jacques Ayagon made concessions as soon as he learned about the impending strike. Already on the evening of the 7th, he announced that new rules in relation to contract soldiers would be introduced only at the beginning of 2004, that is, three months later than planned. Nevertheless, trade union representatives decided to continue the protest. According to them, a vote will be held every evening whether to continue the strike or not. “We cannot work for the crumbs that the government intends to give us; with its “concessions” it only wants to delay the day of our death,” they said. Bernard Febvre d'Arcier promised to compensate for material losses to those who purchased tickets for the disrupted opening ceremony of the festival. To what date it has been postponed and whether it will take place at all is still unknown. Today a decision will be made on whether to continue or stop the protest, and therefore whether the annual theater festival will take place at all.|
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