Публиката и натискът на масовата култура през късния комунизъм
The Audience and the Pressure of Popular Culture during Late Communism

Summary/Abstract: Alongside the process of reconciliation with the conservative concepts in the theatre of everyday psychological realism and ideological restoration in the cultural policy during the 1980s, the management of the National Theatre had to address a new, serious problem: its audiences. The first symptoms of the declining interest of the audiences in the productions of the theatre started showing in the late 1970s. This was a problem not just for the National Theatre alone, but with this theatre the issue was particularly burning. Over the 1980s, the theatre arts councils would put forward the attendance issue at different discussions on the repertoire and the state of the stage productions. The problem persisted in spite of the organized visits over that period. The problem here was not just in the ‘production activities’, but also ‘plan performance’ of ticket receipts and ‘attendance’ had to be tackled. The seats remained empty even after the obligatory sales, which were organized by the theatre. The article points out and analyses how popular culture started taking over, although totally under the control of the ‘high’, official culture and how the ideological filter passed it through even at the National Theatre in the choices of repertoires and as an attempt to reanimate the hoary ideological cliches.

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