site.btaNational Theatre's Future Lies in Maintaining Tradition and Engaging in International Dialogue, Critic Nikolai Yordanov Says

The future of Bulgaria's National Theatre in the 21st century lies in preserving what is most valuable about the national tradition while at the same time engaging in international dialogue on a par with other cultures, critic and historian Nikolai Yordanov said on Friday. Yordanov is one of the authors in the December issue of BTA's LIK magazine, which is dedicated to the 120th anniversary of the Ivan Vazov National Theatre in Sofia.

He said that until the middle of the 20th century the National Theatre was both the face and the model of Bulgarian theatre. At the beginning of the century, when it was founded, there were no other theatre houses in the country. After World War I, other larger cities decided to establish their own theatres, based entirely on the model of the National Theatre. The theatre houses that emerged in Plovdiv, Varna, Ruse and Burgas could not meet the high artistic standards of the National Theatre, but they tried to measure up to them, Yordanov said.

Some of the directors and the actors moved to these new theatres, and understandably, a law was adopted in 1942 proclaiming the theatres as state institutions. Up until the present day, the model has been considerably influenced by the formula which emerged at the start of the 20th century, and that is unique, Yordanov said.