Acting groups from Russia, Spain, Denmark, Great Britain, the Czech Republic, Latvia, Argentina, Croatia and other countries will put on their plays during the 10-day festival. There will be over 300 guests attending “HyeFest”. The opening ceremony will take place at the Puppet Theatre in Yerevan, where the newly founded and popular “Practice” acting group from Moscow will play its new “Play about Money” for the opening act.
“Practice” was founded by producer of “Golden Mask” theatre festival Edwad Boyakov. The group has managed to gain popularity in a year and present plays based on politics and society.
“We are only interested in the works of contemporary playwrights,” says the director, who has directed a play telling about a generation that places emphasis on the amount of money one has. The author of the play is journalist Victoria Nikiforova. Niko Baykhas from Barcelona is going to put on a great play, as well as the “Nightingale” theatre from Great Britain, which will present the play “Tragedy” telling the story of English actor Edmun Keen and other groups. Well-known directors from Yerevan will conduct master classes and seminars.
New people, new heroes and new authors are coming onto the stage. The “HyeFest” festival will show how the groups of different ethnicities present those new people and heroes. As always, there will be a lot of guests, including producers, art-managers and festival organizers. “HyeFest” is a great opportunity for people in search of watching modern theatre and gives a chance for traveling abroad and getting invitations.
“There have been many invitations and there will be, but the thing is that we have to be able to accept the invitation,” says president of “HyeFest” Arthur Ghukasyan, who feels sorry for Armenian actors and directors who receive invitations from abroad to play in festivals but can’t go due to lack of finances.
“The Ministry of Culture doesn’t provide funding. Even if the organization offers a honorarium, many still can’t go because they need money for traveling,” he says.
The Ministry of Culture doesn’t even provide funding for “HyeFest”, while many groups come to join in the “HyeFest” festival, expecting to get more invitations.
“The “Artishok” theatre from Kazakhstan has received many outstanding offers by participating in “HyeFest”; the Armenian pantomime, puppet and the Malyan theatre also receive invitations,” says Ghukasyan. It was due to lack of funding that Zhirair Dadasyan’s pantomime theatre didn’t get a chance to go to Brussels to take part in a highly-acclaimed festival, while director Vahan Badalyan wasn’t able to accept the offer to go work in Israel due to financial issues. Armenian theatres work with the same scheme for years, the same general directors put on the same plays and most of them are old (although they are based on the classics) and not many people attend those plays. The audience goes to watch plays with a small group of actors and where there is action. There are some tries for that in Armenia and those are the kinds of plays that add a little spice to Armenian theatre. The people speaking about the current Armenian reality need to be on stage and their presence may serve as the rebirth of theatre and society. The old Edinburg theatre festival tried to change the times of theatre (administrative director of the festival Michael Griffith will be in Yerevan soon), where you have real people on stage acting out what they have written in their diaries, notes and making their observations. Theatre is always moving forward and it has to express the reality, even if that means putting on classic plays. Theatre is a small model of society and today, not many people in Armenia pay much attention to it. Perhaps that’s why there are more young people attending the “HyeFest” plays because youth is not that passive when it comes to theatre.