The theme of the exhibition – theatre architecture – is focused on the central European space. Do you think that these kinds of divisions make sense? Isn’t central Europe an artificial construct that somewhat hinders the perception of relations between the West and central or eventually eastern Europe?

It is essential to clarify two terms that are terribly vague: theatre architecture and central Europe. Because when you employ vague terms side by side, it looks quite exotic.

Central Europe is not viewed here in a sense that delimits it in relation to the rest of Europe. It describes a certain stretch of experiences that this region shares and that are different from other European countries. These experiences basically occurred in the 20th century, perhaps even just in the second half of the 20th century, after the Second World War. All these states are handicapped by the fact that they suddenly became a part of something to which they had never belonged, whether we call this Soviet occupation or a kind of Slavicisation of this space. We could regard 1945 as the culmination of the national movements, because after that there are Slavs dominat in central Europe.

If we wanted to define central Europe in some way there are, in my view, three dimensions determined by history. The first is that this region was torn out of the European context and influenced by Sovietisation. The second dimension is the fact that until the middle of the 20th century central Europe was a multiethnic environment – whether we’re talking about the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, or Hungary. And the third dimension is that the transformation that ensued after 1989, which we now view basically critically, was velvet in that no wars broke out here.

Theatre architecture is essentially also a construct because theatre doesn’t actually need architecture. Architecture ultimately even complicates the act of theatre. Because once people enter the theatre they suddenly find themselves in an extremely powerful space, with red carpets and gold lamps, and suddenly they somehow have to respond to all that. I’ve been thinking about this for more than a year and I’ve arrived at the most encyclopaedic definition of theatre architecture that is basically comical: it’s a building in which plays are staged repeatedly. What fascinates me about this project is that this encyclopaedic formulation suddenly begins to assume various forms – ranging from the National Theatre through to the apartment theatre of Vlasta Chramostová.

And how have you recast these rather complicated terms, areas – theatre architecture and central Europe – into the concept of the exhibition? How did you work with them?

The way we approached it is that architecture is not a physical matter, but that it is the materialisation of history, or rather the materialisation of experience. From that perspective these buildings begin to speak an entirely different language. Consequently I can say that the theatre of Vlasta Chramostová precisely captures the atmosphere of normalisation at its strongest. What fascinates those of us who have had no direct experience with communism about this, I think, is that it is theatre going back to its primordial position of appealing to the gods, theatre in the catacombs, and so on. This is an element that in many cases has vanished from classical theatres today.

How did everything you were just talking about become reflected in the selection or inclusion of theatres in the exhibition? Each theatre in the exhibition is devoted the same space – one ‘display’. Why did you choose to exhibit them this way? 

The basis of the entire exhibition is that visitors enter a kind of ideal space – it’s basically a kind of black box, a dark, unlit gallery – and there they see seventy of the same, recurring objects. But as soon as they approach them each one starts to tell a different tale. That’s where the unity lies. If we presented the materials on each theatre some other way, we would no longer see the common denominator in the central European experience shared here.

Your concept reminds me quite a bit of the exhibition series prepared by the Centre for Central European Architecture (CCEA) titled ‘I’m a Young (…) Architect’. There you gave each contemporary architect a certain amount of space and they each had to somehow present themselves in it. But when working with historical material doesn’t a curator have to ‘step into the story’ a bit more and try to interpret it in some way?

I don’t approach the selection of material from an art historical perspective trying to articulate a truth, because I think in order to articulate the truth of each theatre, each one of them would need its own exhibition. The biggest problem working with the other curators was to convince them that we should minimise the material. In the exhibition we can only present abbreviations, so it is up to the viewer how to respond to them, how to process them or become interested. I view every exhibition from the perspective of the contemporary visitor, who spends seven hours a day sitting in front of a computer. I think that it isn’t the point of the exhibition to give visitors texts to read, because they can find that information themselves very easily on the web.  

In the 20th century discussions about new theatre spaces have often taken place solely on a theoretical level. Will any such unrealised projects be presented in the exhibition?

It’s not the aim of this exhibition to map everything that has taken place in the field of theatre architecture. The sole unrealised project that will be shown is Gödör (Hole) in Budapest. The architectural competition for the Hungarian National Theatre, held in 1997, will be presented, but it will mainly convey information about the ineffectiveness of the current system, how to deal with a representative object. After that competition was held and the best design was chosen there was a change of Government. In the end the theatre was built entirely somewhere else and in a completely different way than had been planned. The new theatre is operating, but it looks like a disaster. For that reason, in just this one case we presented the unrealised design, which isn’t even entirely unrealised because in the hole that was excavated at the original site and filled in with cement there now functions one of the best underground scenes in Budapest. The place has incredible energy, because until 1965 this was where the original Hungarian National Theatre stood.

With regard to experimentation in theatre, I don’t think that such a hot issue anymore. Everyone who in the 1970s went through the phase of experimentation returned to traditional theatre in the end, where there are clear boundaries between the audience and the actors. I don’t know of any spatially multifunctional, multi-purpose theatre that functions well – you always find that they need three days to do a reinstalation. Basically a completely empty space functions best. I think that discussions about changing the theatre space are behind us.

What should visitors take away with them from this exhibition? Should they say to themselves: ‘I’ve seen all the interesting theatres in central Europe’? Or should they grasp the connection between the particular theatre buildings and the history of the place they are located in? Or should they be remembering the designs of the individual theatres?

A central European anomaly that we’ve grown used to is that in each state performances are in just one language. And I think that if the exhibition awakens at least some awareness of the fact that there are also minority theatres, that in Poland there are also performances in Hebrew and Yiddish, in Budapest there are performances in Slovak, and conversely in Bratislava and Košice there are performances in Hungarian, then I think that would be a great success.

So it isn’t above all about architecture…

Architecture is the adopted frame in which everything takes place. So the paradox is that architecture doesn’t change, whether the performances inside are in Hungarian, German, or Slovenian. And that’s what visitors should realise. And they should also admit the possibility that tomorrow the performance in that very same building will be in Dutch. I would like viewers to realise that central European history is truly made material and made visual in architecture. That is why each of these theatres, regardless of what it looks like, bears its own story. And when you go through the entire exhibition and begin to ask questions, ask why the theatres are as they are, you at the same time begin to see all sorts of other things more clearly.

Read more about the exhibition here.