The premiere of Othello at the North Ossetian State Academic Theatre named after Vladimir Tkhapsaev in Vladikavkaz has led to large-scale public conflict and statements by the authorities about the need to strengthen control over the theatrical repertoire.
A modern interpretation of Shakespeare’s tragedy, which featured elements of contemporary stage design, explicit scenes, military uniforms, and music tracks by the rapper Basta, prompted sharp criticism from some audience members, public organisations, and individual cultural representatives.
Following discussions on social media and publications in a number of media outlets, the North Ossetian Culture Ministry announced an internal review and the creation of an artistic council, which will include specialists in culture, journalists, and teachers and which, according to Culture Minister Batraz Gudiev, should serve as an instrument for expert assessment of controversial productions.
‘The theatre is a space for experiments and discoveries, and every audience member has the right to their own perception of a work. Some people liked the performance, others did not, and that is absolutely normal. However, it is important to maintain respect for one another even in moments of disagreement’, Gudiev said, commenting on the situation surrounding Othello.
On 20 December, the day of the premiere, the production’s director Givi Valiev said that he had deliberately decided to move away from a classical reading of Shakespeare’s play.
‘Every era has its own heroes, and it seems to me that since then Othello has changed greatly, as has Desdemona. The world has changed, and so have we. Today we need to speak about a different reading, a different problem of this play, which is what we have done. This story is about planned destruction, when a person is first publicly elevated, spoken about very positively, and he begins to believe it. And then a systematic destruction of the personality takes place. That is Othello’, Valiev said.
After the premiere, People’s Artist of North and South Ossetia Valery Tsariev resigned from his position as a director at the Ossetian Theatre.
‘I can no longer watch vulgar experiments on stage and managerial chaos behind the scenes. Today, when all of Russia has turned its gaze towards national traditions, culture, and family values, the leadership of the Ossetian Theatre is confidently heading towards the West, using the theatre as scenery for its ambitious projects. As the founder of the Faculty of Arts at [North Ossetian State University], I have always believed in the power of education and culture. But now I see only caricatures of art and attempts to attract public attention through perverted stage decisions’, he wrote.
According to him, in the year of the theatre’s 90th anniversary, the troupe and audiences expected national plays and traditional approaches from the theatre’s management, but instead received ‘foreign works of NATO countries’.
‘Why should we then popularise their culture?’, Tsariev asked. ‘This year the repertoire of our theatre has been expanded with productions based on the British playwright Ray Cooney’s Run for your Wife, the French playwright Jean-Baptiste Molière’s The Misanthrope, the Polish writer Sławomir Mrożek’s Emigrants, and the play Le Prénom by the French authors Alexandre de La Patellière and Matthieu Delaporte’.
Public organisations, including those from outside the region, also criticised the production. The head of the public movement Zov naroda (People’s call), Sergei Zaitsev, said that he intended to appeal to law enforcement agencies demanding a legal assessment of the production.
‘What happened on stage cannot be called anything other than mockery of culture and an outright provocation towards society’, he said.
According to him, the performance had an ‘erotic character’, and the 16+ age rating allegedly did not correspond to its content, especially as there were minors present in the audience.
Zaitsev called the production ‘an act of cultural sabotage’ and said that ‘culture must educate, not corrupt’.
The local traditionalist organisation The Supreme Council of Ossetians also appealed to the North Ossetian Head Sergei Menyailo, asking him to intervene in the ‘scandalous situation’ that arose after the premiere. The letter claimed that many audience members considered the performance vulgar and unworthy of the Ossetian Theatre’s stage and therefore, as one Telegram channel wrote, left the auditorium. After that, the letter read, the Supreme Council of Ossetians began receiving appeals from local residents asking for an assessment of the performance. Activists noted that events were taking place in the cultural sphere that did not meet the requirements of the concept of ‘high culture’.
‘In this regard, we petition for state authorities to consider this problem with the participation of the public and to create an effectively functioning public council on cultural issues. Events at the Ossetian Theatre and similar phenomena in the cultural sphere cause a negative resonance in society, do not contribute to its unity, discredit the leadership of the republic in the eyes of the population and run counter to the policy of commitment to Russian spiritual and moral values and the upbringing of young people on their basis, as outlined by the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin’, the organisation’s letter read.
At the same time, North Ossetian Parliamentary Speaker Taimuraz Tuskaev, assessing the situation, said that criticism should be the domain of specialists.
‘In order to give a competent assessment of a particular production, a person must have specialised education’, he said.
Tuskaev also emphasised that he supports censorship mechanisms ‘in general, if we are talking about preserving spirituality and culture’, adding that this issue must be approached ‘very carefully’.
The Minister of Education and Science of North Ossetia, Ella Alibekova, also spoke in support of the theatre, noting its work to cultivate a younger audience. According to her, the Ossetian Theatre has become the leader in school attendance, with tens of thousands of teenagers being drawn into cultural institutions. Alibekova acknowledged that videos from the performance that appeared online were ‘unpleasant’, but emphasised the importance of the theatre’s work and the need to draw conclusions without destroying the collective.
At the same time, the Russian newspaper Izvestia published a series of statements by theatre figures and representatives of the cultural community who publicly spoke out in defence of the director’s concept and against pressure on the theatre.
Kirill Krok, director of the Vakhtangov Theatre, commenting on the situation, said that there is ‘a very fine line’ in reinterpreting classics, but stressed that theatre cannot remain within the aesthetics of the past.
‘Today, the text requires a different approach. Otherwise, it will not resonate with the audience’, he said, adding that one of the objective indicators remains audience interest and ticket sales.
Writer and playwright Aleksandr Tsypkin expressed an even tougher position, saying that a director has the right to any artistic interpretation as long as it does not violate criminal law.
‘As soon as the audience begins to demand cancellations or other restrictions, they step onto a very dangerous path’, he said, stressing that the path from limiting creative freedom to harsher forms of pressure is ‘much shorter than it seems’.
In the history of the Ossetian Theatre, Othello occupies a special place. In the mid-20th century, the role of Othello on this stage was performed by Vladimir Tkhapsaev, after whom the theatre is now named. His work is considered one of the most significant in national theatrical art. This year’s production was timed to coincide with the 115th anniversary of Tkhapsaev’s birth.
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