To celebrate or not to celebrate World Theater Day

Turkey's State Theater might be planning to give free performances across the country on March 27, World Theater Day, but it's not a day of celebration for many theater professionals, with increasing oppression, censorship and a questionable draft law giving control to the state "Theater, one which is 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." Each year, the International Theatre Institute releases an official message for World Theater Day celebrated on March 27. This year's message, featuring the well-wishing sentence above, was from Polish theater director Krzysztof Warlikowski.

What is generally, across the globe, a day of celebration might just turn out to be a day of protests, embittered press statements and simple dismay in the face of increasing oppression, censorship and a draft law that has been hanging over the heads of theater professionals (among others pursuing employment in arts and culture) like the sword of Damocles for a year now.

The talk on the draft law passing might be in a stupor now until the general election in June, but the swift appointments and resignations, censorship and closing down of theaters has now become the norm, especially in subsidized Turkish State Theaters. The draft law offers to bring the controversial 11-member Turkish Art Institution (TÜSAK) committee under the umbrella of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

Subsidizing the theater has been a tradition in Turkey for nearly a century, with the Istanbul Municipal Theater opening in 1931, and a tradition which has been criticized time and again for the quality of the productions, repetitiveness,...