Time of the Moment

I don’t believe when somebody proclaims me the smartest as in the story where the empire had bad wheat one season, and the bread made of it could turn all people mad; the next year the wheat was good, but for one man only. He was selected as the smartest by the king and his only task was to remind the others in the kingdom that they were mad.
In no case would I believe that I could be the one who is selected to move among the people and ask them about their harvest or remark on the futile soil.
It is hard and shameful for a person to feel the smartest in the country, even when the budget is filled in by export of bananas only. Imagine that you have the task, to constantly persuade the people that they are mad, forgive me, simple or just un-smart.
Still there connotations do not prevent me in my intentions to sometimes take a walk among the people and talk with some of them about what I am interested in most. So, let’s talk about theatre.
Just couple of days ago I asked a nice actress why she enrolled at graduate studies, that is, why she wanted to be a Ph.D. in theatrology. Her nice smile and her half closed eyes through which the sky shone blue gave me the answer. The young actor whom I also asked: Why do you want a Ph.D. in theatrology was no less confused.
Those same days, maybe at the same walk, a journalist told m: I know of a theatre critic who would like to become a Ph.D. in theatrology, but he does not meet the conditions. He has written a lot about theatre, but theatrology seems not to be it.
It was enough for me to accept that we do not have theatre critics, they are either quasi or they know everything, and they do not need any education. With the honest exception of couple of them (one from the given number is already retired and has no obligation to write), we do not have theatre critics.
Now there is the question why?
First: because they have lost their neutrality, and became theatricals rather than critics.
Second: because they do not have the conditions to become critics, that is, they do not have a medium. Look how many newspapers, TV and radio stations there are in Macedonia, and how many of them publish theatre critics.
Third: because they have found better, more perspective jobs.
Fourth: simply because somebody has killed them. Shot them.
Somewhere in the west, maybe in America, some theatre critics say: The critic should not feel that he is a part of that theatre community. She should stay aside from the theatricals. His critic should be written with clean hands, as a matter of fact, it should be virginal. The critic should be similar to the people who stand in front of the magazines and do not tell the buyers which goods are good or bad, but they inform them what goods and of which value are sold.
The critics should transfer the love to theatre to the audience, but not presenting themselves as theatricals, but as creators who have an independent side, that is, as people who move along the same river bank with the audience. The critic should have an autochthonous work in the theatre world, where the audience will fully believe.
When a journalist who deals with theatre once called me and invited me to participate in a TV show of hers, I immediately accepted because I thought that we would discuss theatre, the only thing I knew. But when I got the information, something similar to what I had gotten for the other theatre critics, that is, that they were in friendly relation with some theatre feudalists here, that they go around the country and abroad with them, and they feel as theatricals, I realized that nothing would come from the show, because the journalist, as Dusko Kovacevik would say, is seemingly alive. Simply somebody shot at her, he killed her as a critic, same as all the other critics in Macedonia.
This is why we do not have criticism in Macedonia. The theatricals too calm, the so called theatre feudalists, self proclaimed for smartest in the theatre world, kill a good critic per day.
Until when?