Der Welttheatertag wurde 1961 ins Leben gerufen. Der IX. ITI-Kongress in Wien nahm den Vorschlag des finnischen ITI's damals einstimmig an und proklamierte den traditionellen alljährlichen Eröffnungstag des Festivals "Theater der Nationen" in Paris, den 27. März, zum Welttheatertag.

(ITI / jnm)

Und das ist Warlikowskis Plädoyer füs Theater:

27. März 2015. The true masters of the theater are most easily found far from the stage. And they generally have no interest in theater as a machine for replicating conventions and reproducing clichés. They search out the pulsing source, the living currents that tend to bypass performance halls and the throngs of people bent on copying some world or another. We copy instead of create worlds that are focused or even reliant on debate with an audience, on emotions that swell below the surface. And actually there is nothing that can reveal hidden passions better than the theater.

Most often I turn to prose for guidance. Day in and day out I find myself thinking about writers who nearly one hundred years ago described prophetically but also restrainedly the decline of the European gods, the twilight that plunged our civilization into a darkness that has yet to be illumined. I am thinking of Franz Kafka, Thomas Mann and Marcel Proust. Today I would also count John Maxwell Coetzee among that group of prophets.

Their common sense of the inevitable end of the world—not of the planet but of the model of human relations—and of social order and upheaval, is poignantly current for us here and now. For us who live after the end of the world. Who live in the face of crimes and conflicts that daily flare in new places faster even than the ubiquitous media can keep up. These fires quickly grow boring and vanish from the press reports, never to return. And we feel helpless, horrified and hemmed in. We are no longer able to build towers, and the walls we stubbornly construct do not protect us from anything—on the contrary, they themselves demand protection and care that consumes a great part of our life energy. We no longer have the strength to try and glimpse what lies beyond the gate, behind the wall. And that's exactly why theater should exist and where it should seek its strength. To peek inside where looking is forbidden.

"The legend seeks to explain what cannot be explained. Because it is grounded in truth, it must end in the inexplicable"—this is how Kafka described the transformation of the Prometheus legend. I feel strongly that the same words should describe the theater. And it is that kind of theater, one which grounded in truth and which finds its end in the inexplicable that I wish for all its workers, those on the stage and those in the audience, and I wish that with all my heart.

Translation: Philip Boehm (supported by Theatre Communications Group and the U.S. Center of ITI)

Die deutsche Übersetzung findet sich hier.

Krzysztof Warlikowski, 1962 in Polen geboren, gehört zu den bekanntesten zeitgenössischen Regisseuren in Europa. Warlikowskis Regiearbeiten gastieren auf allen großen Festivals von Avignon, Belgrad, Edinburgh, Epidaurus bis New York, Santiago, Seoul und Wien; seine Operninszenierungen sind an großen Häusern wie La Monnaie, Opéra National de Paris, Bayerische Staatsoper zu sehen. Mit Sarah Kanes "Gesäubert" schaffte er 2002 in Avignon seinen internationalen Durchbruch. Seit 2008 ist er Künstlerischer Leiter des Nowy Teatr in Warschau. Dieser Tage arbeitet er an einer Adaption von Marcel Prousts "A la recherche du temps perdu". Im Nowy Teatr sind die Schaupieler in alle Debatten einbezogen, "ausbrechen aus dem Theater" ist Warlikowskis zentrales Thema.