Belarusian ambassador to UK decides to cancel Free Theatre

The Belarusian authorities do not give up attempts to press on the Belarus Free Theatre even abroad.

It started in 2007, when the Belarusian embassy in Lithuania made all possible to cancel the tour of the Belarusian company on the stage of the Youth Theatre of Lithuania. The theatre heads ignored the requirements of the embassy and showed performances.

Later, we continued to face different kinds of such attempts. One of the most popular forms is spreading information that the theatre is a Scientology sect in the countries, where this sect is forbidden by law. Even now, Wikipedia articles in French, German, Russian and Italian contain slander about Belarusian theatre enthusiasts spread by Belarusian secret services.

The start of the new theatre season this year is marked with another attempt of the Belarusian authorities to close one of Free Theatre’s international projects. This time, the ambassador of Belarus to the UK, Alyaksandr Mikhnevich, has distinguished himself.

After information appeared that the Belarus Free Theatre will represent the country with King Lear at the festival at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre ahead of the London Olympics, Mikhnevich phoned to the London theatre and asked for a meeting. He said the Belarus Free Theatre could not represent the country at this grandiose theatre forum. This role should be given to a state theatre, he notes. He revealed a “secret” to the festival organizers: the Free Theatre is not forbidden in the country, it just does not want to work legally because it is unable to sell tickets to its performances.

The festival organizers ignored statements by the ambassador and told him they had watched theatre’s shows and knew about popularity of the Belarus Free Theatre in the world.