Need for reform
Theater Gala: The Gwirkst with the Nestroy!
The 25th Austrian Theater Awards ceremony took place last Sunday at the Volkstheater in Vienna - and once again raised some questions. It is hardly surprising that the gala attracted only 43,000 viewers in front of the ORF screen at prime time.
People don't care about the Nestroy Theater Awards, to put it in good Viennese terms, as a look at the ratings for the ORF live broadcast from the Vienna Volkstheater shows: only 43,000 viewers at prime time, a meagre market share of 2.1 percent. Inside, the house was packed and the industry celebrated itself. How nice!
But the fact that the gala is of little interest is not due to disenchantment with the theater, otherwise the Burgtheater & Co. would be empty. No, the award is just like all the other domestic awards, from Amadeus to Romy. It's a typical Austrian phenomenon, because there, as there, it's all about sensitivities, power, influence and cultural-political interests.
In the case of the Nestroy, there is a problem with the categories: There's an award for "Best Actress" and "Best Actor". However, only one supporting actor is honored, as well as in the category "Young Actor". "Why?", you ask yourself. Although you can be glad that you are spared the term "Acting".
The next irritation came in the category "Best Newcomer - Author, Costumes, Director". No, this is not the award for the egg-laying wool-milk sow, but a mixture of apples and pears with turnips and pineapples. How the jury was able to make a balanced comparative judgment here remains a mystery.
Speaking of the jury: they obviously borrowed from the Vienna City Marathon, because hand-picked theater critics, seven in number, evaluate over 1000 performances per year in German-speaking countries - that means each of them sees an average of 143 plays: a clear case of toxic overdose.
It's also toxic when you don't know exactly what an award stands for - as is the case with the "Special Prize" category, which smells of unsaleable, sorry, assignable discount supermarket goods.
What is particularly incomprehensible, however, is that the top category "Best Play of the Year" is split up: There is the "Best Performance in a German-speaking Country", in which not a single (!) production by a local theater was among the nominees this year. Really? But there is an award in the category "Best Provincial Performance", within which Vienna (apparently not a province for the Nestroy makers) is not included either.
The fact that Michael Maertens and Roland Koch have been nominated as one person in the "Best Actor" category makes people shake their heads in bewilderment.
A reform of Nestroy, a great idea that also puts small theaters in the spotlight, is urgently needed, otherwise it is threatened with extinction through insignificance.
This article has been automatically translated,
read the original article here.
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