State panel rubbishes amateur playwrights
Although swamped with entries from prospective emulators of Euripides and Aristophanes, the panel of the 2001 state awards for a theater play has been unable to weed out a single first-rate playwright. Announcing the – second and third place – winners of the annual competition staged by the Culture Ministry, the panel of actors, writers and directors yesterday complained of «naive and clumsy» plays. It said many of the submissions were plagued by « poorly assimilated influence from abroad, the problematic development of the action… and a lack of realistic dialogue.» Contestants in the children’s theater section came in for the most abuse, with not a single prize awarded. «We advise playwrights to go to a lot of plays and afterward to try to write, tear up their first drafts and write again,» the panel said.
