Subscribe
The debate about conservatism is usually about politics and social development. But there is also an interesting discussion today in cultural life regarding tradition and renewal in various art forms.
Architecture can be said to be an art field that has reached the general political debate. Probably because architecture is not only an artistic expression but also an artistic practice that affects our living environment. We cannot escape architecture. We live with it daily. Therefore, even people who are not that interested in art and culture can be motivated to have opinions about architecture. But beyond architecture, those interested in politics are not usually primarily interested in various art forms.
But now in the spring of 2026, a debate is underway in the Swedish media about the theater that should be of interest even to people who usually reflect on purely political conservatism. It is a debate that is clearly about conservatism, preservation, renewal and reuse. We can understandably recall that for a hundred years, theater has had to exist in competition with film, just as painting has had to exist in competition with photography.
Perhaps this has contributed to both the theatre and the visual arts undergoing such strong changes.
The theatre has become an area where art should preferably be renewed or even revolutionized. We have had a realistic theatre, an absurd theatre, an activist theatre and we have seen many different forms of experimental theatre. The theatre has been given the role of offering cultural experiences rather than entertainment and excitement. Film and TV have had to offer the easily digestible.
During the spring, one of Sweden’s most famous authors, also a scriptwriter for the theatre, Jonas Gardell, wrote a column in the newspaper Expressen about contemporary theatre in Sweden. He says he is tired of going to the theatre and only being able to take part in unscripted performances around various themes or improvisations. Where did storytelling go? Gardell wonders. Where did we make of the playwrights? The plays that have survived from historical times are plays in which the script, the story, the narrative endure over time and space. Are we really going to leave it to modern film and TV series to give people stories and characters?
The debate article apparently hit the Swedish theater establishment right in the face, because the debate posts have been pouring in all spring. Some debaters think Gardell is dreaming back to a world that no longer exists. But many seem to think he is right.
What some emphasize is that the modern TV medium, with its strong focus on extended and audience-free stories and character development, has once again put storytelling at the center of dramatic art in the broad sense. And it seems as if there are two different conclusions that theater can draw from this.
Either theater seeks even more towards non-narrative (the “post-dramatic” theater). And that is what theater seems to have done up until now and which Jonas Gardell said in his debate article that he had grown tired of.
Or, more people seem to think, contemporary and perhaps future theater can become part of the return of dramatic storytelling. Here, playwright Malin Axelsson puts forward the interesting idea in an article that today’s young potential audience is schooled in storytelling and character development in a way that audiences of older generations were not. Young people have developed their sense of stories, contradictions and drama through the consumption of TV series, but also to some extent using dynamic computer games.
“Today’s young audience,” Axelsson writes in a debate post, “is a completely new kind of audience. Today’s young people have often seen thousands of hours of advanced storytelling before they turn twenty. They understand parallel plots, genre breaks and long emotional arcs intuitively. The fact that theatres try to speak to that audience should not be seen as a threat to art, but rather as a self-evident ambition. If we don’t want theatre to die.”
For a conservative consumer of culture, perhaps the lesson is that even renewal sometimes ends up in dead ends. The renewal of theatre and storytelling in theatre may not only need to happen by theatre abandoning storytelling, but by storytelling simply becoming better. And if it is true that young people read fewer books, perhaps we can get them to go to the theatre.