Look in the Mirror
Every year on March 27th the International Theatre Institute celebrates World Theatre Day. On that day a figure of world stature is asked to share his or her reflections on the theme of Theatre and a Culture of Peace. Past contributors have included John Malkovich, Edward Albee, and Eugéne Ionesco.
Art makes us look in the mirror. It reflects who we are as a people a culture and a society. The mirror does not hide the scars and neither should our art. We should reflect on the whole: both the good and the bad.
And one of the ways we reflect on who we are as humans is through story and one of the ways we present story is on stage. And that’s why we still gather in groups to experience the comedy and tragedy of life. Theatre has a place in society. It always will. It will not die. We are social creatures and theatre is one of the original social medias.
I thought it might be interesting to dive into the archives, beginning with the first World Theatre Day message delivered by Jean Cocteau in 1962, and see whether or not these messages from the past still have relevance in today’s world.
***
“It is the nature of the theatre to breed this paradox: that history, which as time goes on, becomes deformed, and mythology, which, as time goes on, becomes established, have their only true moment of reality upon the stage.”
Jean Cocteau World Theatre Day 1962
***
“In a time when diplomacy and politics have such terribly short and feeble arms, the delicate but sometimes lengthy reach of art must bear the burden of holding together the human community.”
Arthur Miller World Theatre Day 1963
***
“The theatre and its sister arts cannot aim high enough in their responsibility towards society. Our effectiveness is great, and transcends national boundaries. We invite people to our theatre to present to them an image of reality in an entertaining, wise and agreeable form, thus enabling them to recognize reality. We, the people of the theatre, try with our work to make our planet at last fit to live: and that still means above all, that we must create a theatre for a peaceful present and a friendly future, in which man is a helpmate to man.”
Helene Weigel World Theatre Day 1967
***
“Art, as the saying goes, knows no frontiers. The theatre should have no frontiers either. Transcending ideological divergencies, caste, race, national outlook and individual countries, the theatre should be a universal country, the meeting place of all men who share the same anguish and the same hopes revealed by the imagination, and should be neither arbitrary nor realistic but an expression of our identity, our continuity and our oneness.”
Eugéne Ionesco World Theatre Day 1976
***
“The theatre taught man to face himself honestly, with infinite scrutiny; to confront his guilt and assume responsibility for himself; it taught him to consider and rise to what he could be rather than bow to limitations he has been led to accept. It taught him equality through protest and how one man alone is an entire universe.”
Radu Beligan World Theatre Day 1977
***
“…not a day goes by without learning of increasingly cruel acts of violence and terror, of dangerously tense situations and armed conflict. Every day we witness the growing hatred of one human being for another, mutual intolerance and brutal violations of human rights which, in the field of international relations become transformed into threats of catastrophe.
A self-destructive fever seems to have humanity in its grip. In our attempt to prevent these catastrophes we have resorted to a tragic and paradoxical form of therapy; struggling to maintain life we undermine its roots; declaring peace we accelerate the insane arms race, protecting people’s freedom we violate their sovereignty; solemnly proclaiming the Charter of the Rights of Man we trample human dignity underfoot. The UNESCO Constitution asserts that wars begin in the minds of men and that it is in their minds that peace must be built – a lasting peace founded on the intellectual and moral solidarity of humanity.”
Janusz Warminski World Theatre Day 1980
***
“This day enables us to focus on all that unites us, that links us to one another, through our daily joys and cares. But above all, it provides an opportunity to look on the other, on another culture, at the other end of the planet. If, kindred in poetry, theatre artists often anticipate the reality of tomorrow and have a foreboding of the destiny of humanity, they also represent its memory!
The Second World War ended 40 years ago. The world of theatre remembers. Theatre, so often harassed, persecuted throughout the ages, has become the symbol of resistance to all types of oppression; theatre which identifies itself to life, for creation is life, is witness to this renascent life.
From the end of the nightmare a great hope emerged: that of mutual understanding between peoples.”
André-Louis Perinetti World Theatre Day 1985
***
“Today, as in the past, Theatre must contribute to enlightening our minds, and to giving battle on all fronts against barbarity on our planet. Now, more than ever, it needs to make its presence felt in our societies, caught up as they are in a web of racist and exclusive attitudes and practices; it must make people think and arouse solidarity, all things which contribute to human dignity. Theatre must act as a precursor, illuminating people’s self-awareness and their conscience.”
Jorge Lavelli World Theatre Day 1992
***
“I have been in totalitarian societies where people have been imprisoned, have died for access to the arts, and I live in a society where the self-censorship is as ruthless as any imposed from without. The paradox is uglier than we should have to consider.”
Edward Albee World Theatre Day 1993
***
“Ethnic fanatics and thugs are casting the world back into its darkest past. People of the theatre who engage their audiences in dialogue about the dramas of the world of today and the dramas of the human spirit point the way to the future. There is another war going on in Sarajevo beside the one we see on television. It is an unarmed conflict between those who hate and kill others only because they are different, and people of the theatre who bring the uniqueness of human beings alive and make dialogue possible. In this war the people of theatre must win. They are the ones who point towards the future as a peaceful conversation between all human beings and societies about the mysteries of the world and Being.
These people of the theatre are serving peace and they remind us that theatre still has meaning.”
Vaclav Havel World Theatre Day 1994
***
“Both the theatre and the international arena demand care and concern, but no less do they demand optimism. Without optimism, mixed with a good helping of realism, no theatre can survive. The theatre, as a microcosm of our society, reflects and sometimes reinvents what we do in the outside world. All human conflict and strife, ambitions and dreams are generously depicted there. The entire world’s a
stage, as a rather well-known English dramatist put it, and on that stage, the actor becomes the symbol of man with all his shortcomings and frailties, with all his high hopes and ideals.”
Vigdis Finnbogadottir World Theatre Day 1999
***
“Theatre subtly permeates the human soul gripped by fear and suspicion, by altering the image of self – and opening a world of alternatives for the individual and hence the community. It can give meaning to daily realities while forestalling an uncertain future. It can engage in the politics of peoples’ situations in simple straightforward ways. Because it is inclusive, theatre can present an experience capable of transcending previously held misconceptions.”
Jessica A. Kaahwa World Theatre Day 2011
***
“May your work be compelling and original. May it be profound, touching, contemplative, and unique. May it help us to reflect on the question of what it means to be human, and may that reflection be blessed with heart, sincerity, candor, and grace. May you overcome adversity, censorship, poverty and nihilism, as many of you will most certainly be obliged to do. May you be blessed with the talent and rigor to teach us about the beating of the human heart in all its complexity, and the humility and curiosity to make it your life’s work. And may the best of you – for it will only be the best of you, and even then only in the rarest and briefest moments – succeed in framing that most basic of questions, “how do we live?” Godspeed.”
John Malkovich World Theatre Day 2012
***
“Under trees in tiny villages, and on high tech stages in global metropolis; in school halls and in fields and in temples; in slums, in urban plazas, community centres and inner-city basements, people are drawn together to commune in the ephemeral theatrical worlds that we create to express our human complexity, our diversity, our vulnerability, in living flesh, and breath, and voice.”
Brett Bailey World Theatre Day 2014
***
“We need every kind of theatre.
There is only one theatre which is surely not needed by anyone – I mean a theatre of political games, a theatre of a political “mousetraps”, a theatre of politicians, a futile theatre of politics. What we certainly do not need is a theatre of daily terror – whether individual or collective, what we do not need is the theatre of corpses and blood on the streets and squares, in the capitals or in the provinces, a phony theatre of clashes between religions or ethnic groups…”
Anatoli Vassiliev World Theatre Day 2016
***
“More than literature, more than cinema, the theatre —which demands the presence of human beings before other human beings— is marvellously suited to the task of saving us from becoming algorithms, pure abstractions.
Let us remove everything superfluous from the theatre. Let us strip it naked. Because the simpler theatre is, the more apt it is to remind us of the only undeniable thing: that we are, while we are in time; that we are only while we are flesh and bone and hearts beating in our breasts; that we are the here and now, and no more.
Long live the theatre. The most ancient art. The art of being in the present. The most wondrous art. Long live the theatre.”
Sabina Berman World Theatre Day 2018
***
“As the world hangs by the hour and by the minute on a daily drip feed of news reportage, may I invite all of us, as creators, to enter our proper scope and sphere and perspective of epic time, epic change, epic awareness, epic reflection, and epic vision? We are living in an epic period in human history and the deep and consequential changes we are experiencing in human beings’ relations to themselves, to each other, and to nonhuman worlds are nearly beyond our abilities to grasp, to articulate, to speak of, and to express.
This is a time for deep refreshment of our minds, of our senses, of our imaginations, of our histories, and of our futures. This work cannot be done by isolated people working alone. This is work that we need to do together. Theater is the invitation to do this work together.”
Peter Sellars, World Theatre Day 2022
***
“I am speaking to you today, not just to speak, or even to celebrate the father of all arts, “theatre,” on his world day. Rather, I invite you to stand together, all of us, hand in hand and shoulder to shoulder, to call out at the top of our voices, as we are accustomed to on the stages of our theatres, and to let our words come out to awaken the conscience of the entire world, to search within you for the lost essence of humanity. The free, tolerant, loving, sympathetic, gentle and accepting human. And to let you reject this vile image of brutality, racism, bloody conflicts, unilateral thinking, and extremism. Humans have walked on this earth and under this sky for thousands of years, and will continue to walk. So take your feet out of the mire of wars and bloody conflicts, and leave them at the door of the stage. Perhaps then our humanity, which has become clouded in doubt, will once again become a categorical certainty that makes us all truly qualified to be proud that we are humans and that we are all brothers and sisters in humanity.”
Samiha Ayoub, World Theatre Day 2023
***
More than ever we need to build bridges of understanding between nations and people and theatre is one of the ways we can do that. And maybe the future of theatre is to be found not just in the performing spaces of basements and churches and theatres but in our ability to share thoughts and ideas across new forms of social media. And maybe the future of theatre, in combination with today’s social media, is one of the ways we can help to promote understanding and compassion throughout the world.
I suppose now more than sixty years after the first International Theatre Day the message is still the same. The echoes of the past reach us in the present and while we can never eliminate violence we can certainly help to reduce the amount of violence in the world.
***
