Естетизация и стилизация: възможната съпротива в „Хамлет“ на режисьора Венелин Цанков
Aestheticization and stylization: the possible resistance in Hamlet by director Venelin Tsankov

Summary/Abstract: The article focuses on the artistic maneuvers that theater directors undertake in the conditions of socialist realism in order to satisfy the need for nominal stage realism and richness of aesthetic means in socialist Bulgaria. The introduction to the historical period in the article presents the paradoxes of this dual existence, which, however, is not devoid of artistic facts. An example of this is the director Venelin Tsankov and his performance „Ham-let” in the Varna Daramatic Theater in the 1955/1956 season - one of the first breakthroughs of the so-called normative aesthetics of socialist realism. The performance appeared only three years after Stalin’s death in the period of the thawing and debunking of the personality cult. The choice of this example is justified by the fact that, on the one hand, the performance provoked a serious public response and criticism from institutional critics; but on the other hand, the choice of aesthetic means for its realization creates a polemical atmosphere around the reception of the show in view of the official normative aesthetics of socialist realism. All this demonstrates not only the complex situation in which Bulgarian directors work during the era, but also the uneven path of asserting stylistic pluralism on the Bulgarian stage after 1944.

• Details
• Contents