Björn Wiman: the royal dramatic theatre should be seen as a theater – not like a zoo with open cages

”Imagine you are inside a zoo twelve o'clock at night. And all the cages are open.”

It was director Staffan Valdemar Holm, who for the post-employment years 2002-2008 in this way, joked about what it meant to have the service as the ceo and artistic director of the royal dramatic theatre.

today, the parable, as Holm, in turn, borrowed from one of their representatives, might have lost a part of its charm. But the exoticism to the fascination of the strange menagerie is probably timeless. In addition, it is an image that the theatre itself helped to create. In 1998, the same year that no less than three of the institution's actor is sentenced for various crimes, published in the last number of the royal Dramatic theatre's own journal the Drama, which had given the 26 photographers commissioned to portray each of the theatre's stars. Some of the photographs reveal more about the Dramatic self-image than one would wish, as when Gerhard Hoberstorfer on a demonic close-up figure with blood running out of one nostril. On a spread, as in the day klentroget wonder if it is taken out of reality, on the one hand, a pure fantasy to conclude that where one of the theatre's female stars stretches out on a bed, on the other a snapshot of Mikael Persbrandt. With a fresh black eye on one eye.

– in its time, so clear that you can't even see them. It is interesting to compare with the everyday lunken in mjukisbyxor as depicted in the SVT series ”Life at the royal dramatic theatre” from the spring of 2018. In the section that deals with the aftermath of metoo performing working Eirik Stubø, an updated variant of the Staffan Valdemar Holms zoological metaphor. ”The royal dramatic theatre shall not”, says Stubø, to be ”a biotope for bad behavior.”

Read more: Julia Dufvenius: I got the protection to and from the stage at the royal dramatic theatre

last Monday, Eirik Stubø leave his post. But the crisis that led to his resignation goes far back in time. In this week's Studio a spoke actor Morgan Alling, who has worked in the past Dramatencheferna Ingrid Dahlberg, Staffan Valdemar Holm, and Marie-Louise Ekman, on the lines of emergency meetings without management act, if the actor who played with the tag, scolded sufflöser and thrown chairs around.

the years have reported from the royal dramatic theatre proving Morgan Allings experience – but also that much has worsened under the current board of directors. In november last year, the Swedish newspaper svenska Dagbladet report that some thirty persons, voluntarily resigned since Eirik Stubø office of the director, including those who led the new gender equality work. Several employees at the royal dramatic theatre gave to the SvD, the image of a leadership without a functioning planning and interest to build a sustainable organization and work environment. At about the same time pronounced the Swedish theatre union criticism of the royal Dramatic theatre's management, which they felt had not done enough to comply with the action plan, which stipulates a zero tolerance policy against harassment and violence.

To employees and fackklubb reacts is, of course, a thing. It would be able to dismiss with the argument that the crisis is the normality of a creative institution that is the royal dramatic theatre. But the fact is that also the royal Dramatic theatre's board of directors confirmed that the image is true; recently wrote the board of directors an internal letter to employees in which they acknowledge that they should have ”acted more forcefully” when it comes to the abuses that come to light.

With this, you think that everything should be in order. Severe anomalies are detected at one of Sweden's largest taxpayer-scenes, the board recognizes that the situation is unsustainable and the man responsible, the theater's managing director, will have to leave.

Eirik Stubøs departure, however, is something else. Instead of analysing the critical situation at the royal dramatic theatre, directed many of the reactions against the media who reported about the obvious abuses. In Aftonbladet talking teaterrecensenten Claes Wahlin on to the royal dramatic theatre in stockholm suffering from a ”pushed”, and in Svenska Dagbladet sort kulturchefen Lisa Irenius in the actor Julia Dufvenius well-documented story in the DN about how she got the personal protection equipment to and from the scene as a ”missnöjesyttring”. Irenius is complementary with a number of trivial observations about the importance of hearing the other side – a matter of course in all serious nyhetsjournalistik.

Read more: Johan Hilton: Many more than Eirik Stubø bear the responsibility

The image they thereby help to create is not flattering for the Swedish kulturjournalistik. Become a group who seem more loyal with kulturlivets institutions than with journalistic assignment to review them – and more interested in a positioning device metadebatt than to uncover the real ills. It is in this case a sickening dekadenstecken for a kulturjournalistik where fewer and fewer have the skills required for qualified coverage.

is it clear that the board's conduct of its mission – as DN:s teaterredaktör Johan Hilton has underlined – deserves further examination. Why was the attitude of the board members, so long so passive during the personalflykten from the national the past few years? How was it that they accepted the awkward handling associated with metoo in the autumn of 2017? Why intervened they have not previously to give the Eirik Stubø the support he demonstrably needed in its leadership?

All of this should be the subject of an external accident. Only so can the new artistic leader who will be given the keys to a working theater – not to a zoo with open cages.

Read more by Björn Wimans söndagskrönikor here