Romanian Theatre as Public Service. A Critical Perspective of the Last Decades

Abstract

This paper aims at synthetizing, from a critical perspective, the trajectory of the Romanian subsidy scheme of performance - mainly theatre - institutions, over the last century. Our basic argument is that, despite all the major political changes which took place after the First and the Second World War, despite the succession of dominant ideologies, the subsidy scheme has mainly remained the same, although the amounts invested by the authorities have varied from a time to another. The below analysis focuses on the relation between the political project, the state apparatus (both central, and local), the legislative system, the economy, and mentalities, in an attempt to prove the strange conservatism of a unique administrative model, as well as the lack of vision of the various political regimes with regard to the public service dimension of theatre art.