Lietuvos Rytas (Lithuania) 14-5-'97
The
theater sport championship, another LIFE festival performance, took
place on Monday night. The troupes competed with each other to discover
which of them is better to tell a story spontaneously, which
of them can improvise the theme or idea offered by the audience more
inventively, skillfully, wittily.
Competitions Created in Canada
Such way of competing was invented at the Calgo University,
in Canada, a decade ago, when director, professor and writer Johnstone
together with his students created the rules and the structure for
their improvised scenes. These developed to be similar to the wrestling
competition. "If the competition fails, you are welcome to take
your money back", - Johnstone had said to the audience.
Today these improvised performances remind of the popular games played
in different countries: Canada, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Holland,
Great Britain, Germany, etc.
Scenes Seasoned with Local Coloring
The improvisations performed by the Swedish troupe "Stockholm's
Improvisationsteater", Finnish "Stella Polaris", Dutch
"Theatersport Vereniging Amsterdam" looked like they followed
a readily-made script, relatively poor in its context and plus enriched
by elements from the local life.
Therefore the musical which very much resembled a TV-serial "Santa
Barbara" took place in Bezdonys, the Finns performed a Princess'
drama in mysterious Vilnius, one Swede, requested by the audience
to act the Lithuanian prime minister Gediminas Vagnorius, showed the
premier's innocent habit to have a drink in the morning.
Four Points For Nijole Ozelyte
One of the judges at the theater sport championship was a Lithuanian
theater star Vytautas Sapranauskas. He gave as many as four points
out of five to the troupe which performed the Lithuanian Parliament.
After the audience threw sponges at him, Sapranauskas explained this
high evaluation by one of the actor's resemblance to the member of
the Lithuanian Parliament Nijole Ozelyte.
The actors asked the audience not only for ideas to improvise, but
also to evaluate their performance in the same way as the traveling
comedians used to be "evaluated" in the market place. However,
the today audience did not throw rotted tomatoes or eggs at the actors,
but they were offered wet sponges instead.
Such Theater Prohibited By Censorship
The press conference for all the three troupes took place yesterday.
The Swedes said the English is not their mothertongue and therefore
it was more difficult to perform in a foreign language. Moreover,
the interpretation made all the improvisations happen slower than
usually.
The most important thing in the theatresport as it is in football
is the strategy. When one of members of the team passes over the ball,
another member should take it over immediately. Today the troupes
perform in 273 different ways. There were no such theaters earlier
because of the strict censorship.
As the essence of theater sport is improvisation, the performance
may either succeed or fail. The actors were very happy that the Lithuanian
audience never hissed at the actors.
They Do Not Make a Living of Acting
All the actors that performed in the theater sport championship
are free-lance. The Swedes work in the improvisation theater, television.
The Finnish actors make some money by performing in restaurants, schools
-- Finnish children love performances like that.
The actors often play in prisons, also in the former factory of cables
in Helsinki where a huge center of alternative art is established
today.
The Dutch actors do not make a living of this profession. One of them
works a teacher of Latin and Greek in the theater school, and theater
is just a hobby for her. Other members of the team have different
professions : an inspector of human resources, a social worker, a
computer programmer.
Rusné Marcénaité, Laima Zemuliené
(translation : Elena Konceviciute) |