The Influence of Natural Monopolies on Cultural Democracy in the Performing Arts in Estonia

The core question of this article is to what extent has the state set securing cultural democracy (vs. the democratisation of culture as defined by François Matarasso and Charles Landry1[1]) in the performing arts in Estonia as its policy goal. In Estonia, the theatre field is dominated by natural monopolies. These are companies that receive most of the financial subsidies in a respective field, making it economically non-viable for any other company to duplicate these resources. In Estonia, there are eight state-owned theatres (called G8-theatres) that collect, on average, 60% or more of the state subsidies for theatres, the state-subsidized theatre visits and the total income from ticket sales. As stated in the Competition Act of Estonia, company or companies that earn more than 40% of the turnover of the whole market are considered natural monopolies. Therefore, the G8-theatres are natural monopolies. The question whether the Estonian state has done enough to compensate non-governmental theatres (called NonGov theatres) for the aggregation of resources to natural monopolies is one of the main focuses of this article. Here, two strategies are analysed: the activity of the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and the state's attempt to invest in building an alternative infrastructure for NonGov theatres.   [1]          François Matarasso and Charles Landry, Balancing act : twenty-one strategic dilemmas in cultural policy, Cultural Policies Research and Development Unit, Policy Note No. 4, Council of Europe Publishing, Belgium 1999, p 13–14

How to Explain Popular to a Dead Hare

In this article the popular is defined with the tools of field theory by Pierre Bourdieu, that is as production with high degree of outer-field economic capital (measured with the number of visits per production). It is also claimed that on some conditions these productions do not lower the degree of autonomy of the field since theatre manages to convert the economic capital to symbolic capital (nominations for annual awards give evidence of the latter). Such a production is called the Full Game. Based on the comparable data of new productions made in Estonia from 2010 to 2015 (1199 in total) the article will introduce a possible methodology of how to calculate the popular in theatre that considers both the number of visits per production in a year and the use of seating capacity. Following that methodology, there were only sixty-one produc­tions during the chosen period that could be titled popular in a sense that they have a very high degree of outer-field success (these productions are visited 2,4 times more often than the average number of visits per production in one calendar year and have the attendance rate of 95% and higher). Taking into account also the inner-field specific consecration (whether they have been nominated for annual theatre awards), only twenty-three popular productions – among them just one comedy, one musical and one operetta – remain in the list of what I have called the Full Game. That is two per cent of all the new productions of the respective time period.The list of Full Games suggests that the specific theatre, where the production is per­formed plays a significant role for a production to become popular. Only four theatres have had more than one Full Game in 2010–15 in Estonia and two of them – Theatre NO99 and Tallinn City Theatre – are used as case studies to find possible strategies of being popular without loosing specific consecration

Rakvere Theatre in search of Full Games from 1985 to 2009

Iga teater peab oma kunstilisi otsuseid tehes arvestama ühelt poolt publiku maitse-eelistustega ning teisalt riigi ootustega. Esimesest annab aimu külastusstatistika, teist väljendavad seadusandlus, rahastamissüsteem, kultuuriministeeriumi arengukavad jmt dokumendid. Prantsuse sotsioloog Pierre Bourdieu räägib kultuuritootmisväljadest, kus tegutsevad agendid, näiteks teatrid, võitlevad pidevalt samal väljal tegutsevate konkurentide tunnustuse eest, püüdes samal ajal ka väljavälist tuntust. Tunnustus tagab teatritele renomee, tuntus majandusliku kasu. Kultuuritootmisväljade eripäraks on Bourdieu’ järgi see, et sageli toob majanduslik edu kaasa renomee vähenemise. Seetõttu peavad teatrid iga uuslavastuse puhul endalt küsima: kui suures ulatuses on võimalik kasvatada tuntust ja seeläbi paratamatult kaotada tunnustust. Lavastused, mis suudavad samaaegselt saavutada nii tunnustuse kui tuntuse, on seega „täismängud”. Kuna Eesti teatripoliitika peamiseks teatrite toimimise mõõdupuuks on publikuarv, peavad kõik teatrid pidevalt püüdlema täismängude poole. Rakvere Teatris on aastatel 1985–2009 esietendunud 201 uuslavastust, millest täismängu kriteeriumitele vastavad viis lavastust: „Koduvõõrad” (1987), „Jumalaga, Vargamäe” (1991), „Shakespeare'i kogutud teosed“ (1996), „Pipi Pikksukk” (1998) ja „Täismäng” (2003). Seega on teater jõudnud täismänguni keskmiselt iga 40. lavastusega ehk täismängud moodustavad lavastuste koguarvust 2,5%. Täismängude puhul on sarnane, et neist lavastustest kirjutatakse keskmisest enam, kuid kriitika on pigem poleemiline, nentides, et mõningased vajakajäämised kunstilises plaanis korvab lavastuse sündmuslikkus. Eriti repertuaariteatritele, mille hallata on suured teatrimajad ning kelle riiklik toetus sõltub vähemalt kaudselt publikuarvust, on täismängud püsimajäämiseks vajalikud.In making their artistic choices, theatres always have to take into account both the tastes of the audiences and the stateˈs expectation. Former is evident through the statistics of attendances, the latter through legislation and subsidy system. French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu has introduced the notion of the Fields of Cultural Production, where the agents, such as theatres, always fight for both the acclaim of other agents on that field and the outer-field success. Acclaim gives a theatre its reputation, success its economic profit. Bourdieu claims that on the Fields of Cultural Production the economic profit often influences the reputation in a negative way. Therefore with each new production theatres have to ask themselves: how much economic profit can they earn without loosing too much of their reputation. Productions that at the same time get the reputation and economic profit are then Full Games. Since in Estonia culture policy, the main indicator of theatresˈ efficiency is the number of spectators, all the theatres have to strive for Full Games. In Rakvere Theatre there have been 201 new productions between 1985 to 2009, of which only five correspond to the criteria of the Full Game. So the theatre has reached its goal, the Full Game with every 40th production and the Full Games make only 2,5% of all productions. All the Full Games are reviewed more than in average but the reception is always polemic, stating that although there were some questionable artistic choices made for these productions, the former is overshadowed by the eventness of these productions. For repertory theatres that have big venues to administrate and are indirectly subsidized by their number of spectators, the Full Games are crucial for surviving