Never too much drama in Brussels
Kati and Erik Simpson, who live in Brussels, were nominated for the theatre awards for bringing Estonian theatre to their compatriots living in Brussels. Erik writes about how they have managed to do this for 14 years.
Fourteen years ago, Mauno, played by Tõnu Oja, stepped on the stage and “Aabitsa kukk” (The Cockerel of the Primer), a production of Estonian Drama Theatre, began. There would be nothing remarkable about this as the production was in the theatre’s repertoire for many years. Except that this performance took place in a small theatre hall in Brussels. There was something surreal about it. An Estonian theatre. In Brussels. A friend said he had chills running down his spine. That’s how it started. To date, 90 productions have been staged in Brussels and the audience figures should reach 12,000 by the end of the year.
Brüsselis on näitlejate sõnul üks parimaid teatripublikuid
But let’s go back in time once more, further back than those 14 years. We’d been living in this capital of Europe for several years already. A European city like any other. Houses and cars, parks and pubs. Dogs on leashes, people wearing trousers. Estonia isn’t too far away either, so you could go there when you felt like it. For example, to get black bread or smoked ham. Everything seemed to be fine. Only, after a while, something started to raise its head inside. The fact that we missed theatre came up time and again in the conversations with Kati (editor: artist Kati Simpson, Erik’s wife). When we lived in Estonia, we were rather frequent theatre-goers. But now, we had far fewer options. As always, you only realise the importance of something when you lose it. Getting into the local theatre scene was difficult because our French wasn’t that good at the time. Also, it was specifically Estonian theatre that we wanted to see. So we started wondering whether it might be possible to bring some productions to Brussels. Our gut feeling was that Estonians working here might also be quite interested. Maybe we could build the team we needed to succeed. So we talked about it, in the morning over a cup of coffee and in the evening over a glass of something else, for a year or two. As always, Estonians are in no rush. The other thing was that I had quite a lot of time and energy left after work, and it made sense to take up a hobby that required more effort. And so it went.
We communicated with the Drama Theatre, got a list of the backdrops and props they needed on stage and Kati made a stage that was a proper stage. The old wardrobe where the body was hidden is now in our summer house in Hiiumaa. The broken TV set, which had been cobbled together from plywood, probably went straight into the fireplace after the performance. We were rather nervous before the performance. And we weren’t the only ones. Tõnu Oja said to the light technician before going on stage that “let’s see what kind of diplomats have turned up here”. Well, the image of Brussels was such that the actor thought he’d be facing a hall filled with about a hundred identical people with dead eyes, wearing ties and legs crossed. Actually, normal people had turned up. And as time has shown, they’re one of the best Estonian theatre audiences there is. Many of the troupes that have performed here have praised our audiences. Director Andres Noormets has said that while theatres are generally very happy to go to Tartu to put on a performance because the audience there is so intelligent and sensitive, Brussels might be even better now. So it seems like we managed to put a team together, it was actually here all along, waiting. Occasionally, someone in the theatre asks “are there any VIPs in the audience?” Hardly ever, the people in the hall are pretty ordinary. The calendars of VIPs are full of other events. It’s true that once, a long time ago, Sepo Seeman’s flight was overbooked and he was upgraded to business class, next to Siim Kallas. For starters, Sepo ate Siim’s sushi and then said that there is a performance tomorrow at 7, be there. And Siim was there. But the halls are mostly full of people just like us, on average 100–150 per performance. That’s not too bad at all considering that there are about 2,000 Estonians in Belgium. There have also been 200–300 people, but then the performance had English or French subtitles and was in the programme of a local theatre. These audience numbers have allowed us to cope financially. Eight out of ten performances are self-financed, i.e. the costs are covered by ticket revenue. Sometimes, we manage to get support from the Cultural Endowment, which is a great help.
Etendus RAAMi „Libahunt" näitlejaskond Kati ja Eriku kodus
Nine out of ten performances take place in a real theatre. The reason for this is the prosaic fact that there was no significant Estonian community or an Estonian House here before we joined the EU. We couldn’t take the easy way out and have a community centre event where the curtains are drawn and the lights are turned out, so that old uncle Mati can nod off in peace. We immediately started looking for a real hall and in hindsight, we were probably just lucky as hell. We found the hall quite soon, it was a black-box-like room with 110 seats in a good location. It became the main, if not the only, theatre home during our first years of operation. I don’t even remember how we stumbled upon it, I don’t remember any meetings with the important monsieur directeur. They probably just responded to our emails. Which is an absolutely incredible story in the Belgian context. Later, we realised how difficult it is to establish working relationships with venues, as most of the time they won’t even see us. The number of people living in Brussels is about the same as the population of Estonia, and there aren’t that many halls for rent. The competition is pretty fierce, and most of the time you don’t know who you should sleep with or bribe to get a lease. In addition, the fact that the average theatre hall in this city (and probably in many other parts of Europe) is at least a decade behind the average Estonian hall in terms of technical equipment makes everything more difficult.
Kohapealsete vahenditega loodud lava Vanemuise lastelavastusele "Pettson ja Findus"
I was asked to say a few final words to my compatriots in other countries who are keen to “bring Estonian theatre to the country”. Unfortunately, I don’t have a motivational speech to deliver. I wonder, if we were to start now, would we even be able to get going at all. The environment has changed a lot, all costs have hit the ceiling and often gone through the roof as well. Whilst 14 years ago, a production with two actors and few sets could be produced for as little as €1,500, today that figure has to be multiplied by at least two. The budget for a project that’s even a little bigger tends to be around €5,000, and there have also been performances with budgets in the five-figure range. Of course, a lot depends on how far the place where you want to bring the theatre is from Estonia and what the transport connections are like. In that sense, Brussels is a cursed place, because you can’t fly here cheaply. This is the one line from which the carrier squeezes the last drop of blood. A colleague of mine used to work for Estonian Air and recalls how the whole management team was aware that nobody flies to Brussels for their own money, the state pays.
90. etendus, mis Brüsselisse viidud. Draamateatri „Vaimude tund Koidula tänavas“, veebruar 2025
But yes, the success of bringing a theatre over is probably determined by a combination of the size of the community, how compactly it is located (we are doing very well in this respect, because the majority are close together and you don’t have to travel hundreds of kilometres from the other end of the country) and the level of education of the people and their resulting cultural consumption preferences (again, we are lucky because the vast majority here have at least higher education). If these components seem to be in order, you can look into it further. It would certainly be a good idea to familiarise yourself with the Estonian theatre scene, read and watch cultural news. Go to the theatre yourself when you visit your home country. Have an Estonian friend who is a theatre fanatic. A warm suggestion is to only choose productions that speak to you, that you really want to see. You would have to spend just as much time and energy on nonsense as you do on good stuff, but the “emotional return” for you and the audience is not worth the effort.
What else? It would be a good idea to establish links with an antique shop or a furniture store, where you can rent the necessary stuff for building the stage. We once had a play by Hendrik Toompere, which was set in the 18th century. The antique shop provided the furniture, and the shop wanted all the stuff on the stage to also be for sale. Almost all the furniture was sold. Often, of course, there is no choice but to bring the whole stage over in a van by road. I can’t even imagine what it would cost to ship the stuff in a sea container across the ocean. At first, we accommodated people in our homes, but now we’ve started using rented apartments in the Old Town. Home accommodation helps keep costs down a bit and is a really fun way to spend your time, but also, well, how to put it... intensive. The most difficult thing is to find a few lunatics who will take on the whole circus as a hobby. It’s an unexpectedly vast undertaking, because there are so many things that need to get done, things that are usually done by several hired employees. At the same time, it’s a fun and unique experience.
