TIRANA, Dec 21 /ATA/ At the foundation stone laying ceremony of the new National Theatre, Prime Minister Edi Rama described it as another impressive architectural work in the 21st century Tirana.
In the ceremony organized on the occasion, Rama said that just like the new national stadium, it will serve the actors and spectators in the most optimal conditions, and will rank with dignity alongside the best facilities of the same type in Europe.
The project idea for the new National Theater was conceived by the famous Danish architect Bjarke Ingels.
Rama responded to the doubtful and skeptical stances of the artists regarding this project, saying that they were incited by politics.
“The beauty of this scene is that the protagonists of the “Prefect” or “Concert in 1936” films are here among us. They are not on the side of those who wanted to spoil the concert. This is the contemporary history of this country’s development, while I have often thought about the theater community, leaving aside those who have seen the theater, the stadium, or the “Skënderbej” square, or all other public works as a platform to perform the “Dance of the swords of politics,” why the theater community, despite their different convictions or sympathies, when it comes to politics, had an almost consensual mistrust regarding this process and the desire and will, along with the ambition, to build a theater worthy of a national theater,” said Rama.
Perhaps, Rama emphasized, this is also related to the doubts about the fact that for many years on end it was not possible to build a decent building, as an instinct of self-defense came to unfold with the idea that this was a big trap, and the National Theater would be simply an alibi to make a development for the sake of a profit and would remain under the belly of a tower or complex of high rise buildings.
“Perhaps I cannot answer this question, but I believe that one of the reasons was that for a long time the National Theater community, unable to change the course of events, subscribed to the inertia of living and working in very difficult conditions that the obsolete theater offered, and whole decades passed with promises and vows, but no one rolled up the sleeves to build a new national theater.
“I’m glad that all these faded away. I believe that the unity created between the actors was related to the fact that I had declared war on that building since 1998, when I became Minister of Culture, and it has been a long time when you think that until today the necessary steps could have been taken and we could have had the National Theatre”, he said.
We went on saying that despite the lost time, today the Theater but also the “Skënderbej” square or the stadium have shaped Tirana as a European capital.
The new theater spaces will be almost 9 times larger and are designed in three functional areas.
Thus, the “Front of house” is an area specially dedicated to the interaction of visitors, while the “Back of house” is adapted for the administrative and technical facilities and the necessary spaces for the actors.
Meanwhile, the main hall in the center, due to its shape, creates 4 main performance spaces, suitable to accommodate about 1514 spectators in total. /j.p/sm/
