Theatrical and Anti-Theatrical Aesthetics in Romania Today

Miruna Runcan

Theatrical and anti-theatrical stage
aesthetics in Romania
today

If one wants to
really understand the contemporary substance (general horizon, phenomena and/or
directions) of the Romanian theatre stage today, a short historical approach is
inevitable. As in many other Central and Eastern European cultural spaces, the
modern Romanian theatre was dominated not by a performance but by a literary
tradition, or even by – one could say – a literary canon. In fact, even the
national concepts in political and social life were produced in literary form,
by aristocratic and bourgeois intellectuals – more or less writers or
journalists all of them – who became politicians and got involved, in the
second part of the  century in the
complex processes of the country’s modernization. In this respect, theatre was
first of all a means – institutional as well as cultural – of some kind of a
late illuminist social project, centralism, language, literature and “identity
representation” included.

Even the material
construction of theatre halls, the most important of which were built in the
regionally more significant cities, around 1850, prove that the state and
communities interests were not focused, first of all, on harboring a local
theatrical movement (even incipient), but in creating an institutional frame
for a cultural life “to be”. With a few exceptions (in Iasi
and Bucharest,
both traditional provincial capitals), Romanian modern “National” theatre was
born and meant to express and to symbolize the literary nationalistic ideals which
founded both the modern state and society.

Paradoxically,
building the theatre halls and filling them up with actors, stage designers,
musicians, composers and, of course, theatre performances and shows was simpler
than building a dramatic literature. Even if many novelists and poets exercised
their skills in adaptations and original drama and vaudeville, the number of
really successful and well written plays is not at all impressive (from a
historical point of view) at least till 1900. The result is a bunch of social comedies
and vaudevilles, some romantic dramas in verse or in prose, all based on
historical topics, most of their authors more famous as poets, novelists or
even academics than playwrights. But, in fact, the real life of the Romanian
theatre still retained a literary base (in cultural policies, productions, as
well as in mentalities) a long time after World War I. The National Theatre
model (both Bucharest and Iasi theatres were entitled National and had
state subvention from the beginning, and after 1918, four other big cities
received as a gift from the state their own National institutions) is still alive
today.

Why, one could
ask, would it be so important to summarize these historical aspects for
understanding what’s going on today? First of all because the stage aesthetics
of the Romanian performance, in the first decades of the 20th century, depended
on the tensions and dynamic contradictions between, on one hand, the literary
model and the purely stage tendencies (stage directing, stage design, theatre
criticism and/or theory etc.); and on the other hand, on the tensions between
the national theatres and the private companies, most of them concentrated in
Bucharest’s downtown.

The most
important theatre phenomenon in the inter-wars period was, no doubt, the
process of “liberation” of stage directing (as a specific theatre form of art)
from the dominance of literature. Even since the last decades of the 19th century,
the voice of the most important Romanian playwright, I.L. Caragiale, head of
the Bucharest National Theatre for a while, had dared to proclaim: “Theatre is not literature!”[1]
But, the ample movements of artistic “avanguarde” and the aesthetical
synchronizations between the Western European theatrical trends and directions
and the Romanian artistic milieu would produce a
complete change, in terms of producing, directing, designing and even
understanding theatre as an independent and self identifying art, after 1920.

This more or
less “silent revolution”, that has its theoretical battle fields, its confrontations,
crises and heroes (on both sides, stage directors/stage/set designers and
playwrights, sometimes one person embodying both parties of the war, being a
writer and also a director, not to speak about theorizing their own work and
principles) reached a climax point between 1940 and 1947, and was brutally
stopped by the communist regime in the decade after. If we cannot sincerely
speak about a specific “Romanian theatre vanguard”, with aesthetic styles and
distinct directions, we can highlight instead the profound aesthetical changes
made by some really talented stage directors and set designers, influenced by
the German, French, Russian or Italian schools and ideas
competing on the “international theatre aesthetical market” of their time.
Soare Z. Soare, Ion Aurel Maican, G.M Zamfirescu, Camil Petrescu, Victor Ion
Popa, Haig Acterian and, most important of all, Ion Sava, are the names of just
a few, but extremely active stage artists involved in this struggle.

  But, as profound as these changes were, as
bright and dynamic the cultural atmosphere, their source was mainly cultural: one
could represent it now by a delicate combination of direct observation of theatre
performances (travel in Western Europe and touring companies visiting Romania)
and theatre theory absorption (from Craig to Stanislavski, and from Copeau to
Mayerhold or Tairov), most of it by mediated (literary) references.

The central
concept of the between-wars theatre aesthetics was clouded, the “theatralisation” of theatre[2]:
in short, this “artificial/operational word” meant the finding and artistically
exploiting the stage images as complex metaphors, with the declared goal of
letting theatre to express itself like an artistic action. It looks, more or
less, like an effort to invent theatre’s own language, capable to adjust to
each literary support. Theatralisation
was, on one hand, the flag under which the theatre (seen as the duel art of representation/production) had to fight
for its independence from the literary domination, and also had to conceive its
distinct strategies into the bloody competition with popular culture,
especially film art.

After nearly ten
years of imposed silence and far-fetched propaganda, in 1957 a new generation of
actors and directors emerged, and a large press debate which lasted for more
than a year began. The theatre institutions’ weakness, the lack of
professionalism of actors and directors, the inconsistency of theatre education
or criticism and even (written between the lines) the stupid interventionism of
the officials into theatre’s life became the central issues of this public debate.
Their initiators, most of them young stage directors and set designers who
eventually become famous (Liviu Ciulei, Radu Stanca, Sorana Coroama, Lucian
Giurchescu, Crin Teodorescu, Horea Popescu, Ion Cojar, Geroge Rafael, Mircea
Marosin, Tony Gheorghiu, Tedy Constantinescu etc.) not only had the courage to
confront directly and systematically both the political and artistic establishments,
but also launched, at the same time, a long series of innovatory and beautiful
theatre performances, based on Romanian and foreign (even American, which was a
brave gesture for this time!) repertoire. Their tremendous success imposed not
only a consistent reconsideration of and a natural (re)connection with the “theatralisation” tradition, but also signaled
the birth of the new era of theatre.

After 1960,
theatre life seems to be not only rich and vivid, but also – paradoxically – in
a continuous and strange expansion, if one has to compare it with the
conditions and general degradation of the social and economical life in Romania. I
wouldn’t dare to say theatre didn’t have to suffer the permanent harassment of
censorship or economical restrictions (especially after 1977). Still, the
healthy competition between theatre institutions of Bucharest and the ones throughout
the rest of the country, between artists and their productions, but primarily,
the constant recognition and support of theatre critics and audiences (who, in
the last decade before 1989, deprived of press, television, foreign movies and
even foreign books, used theatre as the last bastion of spiritual resistance to
dictatorship) ensured Romanian theatrical productions were of continual
interest to the public and held a uniquely prestigious position. Even if many prominent
stage directors had to exile in Western European countries and USA (as Liviu
Ciulei, Lucian Pintilie, Andrei Åžerban
or Lucian Giurchescu, among others) in order to find a real freedom of
expression and creation, others took their places and continued their work.

Meanwhile, the “theatralisation”
processes, even if the term itself was for a long time forgotten, skipped from
the theoretical/innovatory phase to a more or less general (aesthetical and
also academic) dissemination/absorption in the theatre environment. Favored by
the rising and shining star of stage-directing – seen as auteur work – after
the ’60s, but also by the special internal audience conditions, which tended to
translate into a kind of complicity between public and artists, in order to
spiritually confront the boundaries of censorship, the theatre performances
become each day more complex, or even baroque[3].

The
consequences, in some good part completely unexpected, of this evolution of the
theatre aesthetics, could be clearly perceived only sometime after 1989. One of
them, and probably the most visible and important, is the lack of interest (shared
by both theatre institutions and prominent stage-directors) for contemporary
playwriting, either Romanian or foreign. This “muzeification” of the theatre’s repertoire was so obvious up until the
beginning of the new millennium (and partially still is) that one could say the
entire history of drama suddenly stopped in the ’60th, on the
benefit of ancient Greek classics, Shakespeare, Pirandello, Chekhov and
Beckett. Theatre tended to become the equivalent of an “opera practice” for
educated audiences and snobbish elites.

Under the
surface, even the purpose and use of theatre performance tended to change from
its status of artistic communication to a new (and dangerous, I would say) one:
a complex hermeneutical – or even nearly religious-initiating practice – in
which any relationship with real life or daily problems seems vulgar and, as a
result, has to be prohibited. Theatre had to be involved only in general human
conditions and issues, and performances had contain a symbolical integrative
vision, a complex cultural network of visual references, as a substitute for a
philosophical perspective for both the director (auteur) and his audience.

In principle,
nothing is wrong with such an attitude, which has its visible roots in an
entire theatre thinking evolution, from Craig to Artaud, and from Grotowski to
Bob Wilson. The dangerous dimension is given by the lack of competition between
this direction and other, more popular, entertaining, commercial or, at least, those
more related to the real world. And, perhaps the most dangerous – and still
un-assimilated – threat is, in our days, the conscious ignorance towards – and therefore
the profound gap – with the substantial transformations of the young audiences’
perspectives in the last decades. To this day, the “director’s cut” continues
to be the one and only purpose of theatre’s production, at least on mainstream
and in the huge repertoire theatres (even now receiving state or community
substantial subventions).

No one would dare
to pretend that the works of the most prominent and famous stage directors and
set-designers[4], from
the beginning of the ’90s till now, were not beautiful, complex, challenging,
in short, valuable. At least their most important performances were and still
are great successes, are traveling widely abroad and enjoying both national and
international recognition. There even were critical voices who said, especially
after 1996, that the best of famous Romanian theatre directors tried and
succeeded to work for an “international/Western European market”, with
classical repertoire like opera singers, focused on the “export value” of their
activities, more than on direct and sincere local response. The fact, true or vaguely
ironical, would not be a bad thing at all in itself, as an exotic phenomenon,
in a more and more globalised culture. But the continuous hegemonic prevalence
of the “theatralisation” – parabolic,
philosophical – model of conceiving and producing theatre performances, without
consistent alternative and challenge, certainly is. In fact, what could a real
Romanian theatre be, for an external observer (theatre spectator, critic or
academic), deprived of the contemporary playwriting dimension, in adequate
stage-directing representations?

The critical
condition of drama writing was well documented even from the first years after
1989. Without any significant cultural policies that could favor its emergence and healthy development, the very
few playwrights of the first decade (such as Vlad Zografi, Alina Mungiu, Åžtefan Caraman and particularly
Radu Macrinici or Alina Nelega) had to work hard to see their plays staged. That
may be the reason why some of them, Macrinici and Nelega as perfect examples,
involved themselves in a more complex, highly exploratory and managerial effort:
they built alternative institutions, festivals and workshops, wrote studies and
articles and initiated debates.

But, despite all
their and other theatre people’s struggle, the real and substantial changes had
to appear only after 2000, foretold in a way by the new generations of
novelists and poets and, particularly, filmmakers. The fact is, and it seems as
symptomatic as one could predict, that the shift of perspective came not from
the literary world, but from theatre’s own life. First of all, the signal was
given by the small (and brave) independent companies, invented by young actors
bored of waiting for their turn to embody some new Hamlet or Ophelia, in
association with directors of their own. Then, nearly an entire promotion of
the directing class at the Theatre University of Bucharest not only showed its
interests in contemporary drama, but also initiated a long term program
dedicated to new playwriting, dramAcum,
(a pun on ‘drama’ and ‘now’). They managed to associate with their initiative a
bunch of young or elder critics, some independent companies and even a few old
theatres, from Bucharest
or other big cities, and even built a foundation to run it. At the same time,
in Cluj, Tîrgu Mureş and Arad, other independent
companies, such as Teatrul Imposibil or Underground, or Teatrul 74, struggled
to promote new and significant playwriting, both from Romania and
abroad.

A superficial
glance at this “return of the expelled playwright” on Romanian stages cannot
give the complete and detailed picture of the actual transformation still in
progress. The main and most significant characteristic of this new direction
is, in fact, the re-linking of theatre with human daily life, individual
dilemmas, social conflicts and issues. The narcissistic attitude and the
solipsistic aesthetical/philosophical ‘auteur’ positioning are rejected, and
theatre’s involvement and participation is now proclaimed. The well-conserved
fear of social and political action on stage (due to the propagandistic
discrediting of any action-discourse in the communist era) disappeared.

In some way, we
could even speak about a healthy and therapeutic movement of “new realism’,
even ‘hyperrealism’ sometimes (language and angriness included), with profound
critical dimensions. But, even the circumstance that the new generation of
stage-directors and actors provoked and gave substance to this movement, by
making room for new themes, topics and drama[5], implies
that we are not witnessing a simple process of theatre adaptation to new trends
and more diversified atmosphere. On the contrary, recent critical analyses,
essays and even manifestos[6],
not to mention interviews and debates, emphasize the rise of a fresh and
complex new aesthetic of the performance itself, in the same time more direct
and dynamic, and also more related to the use of new technologies, dedicated to
a new public. The anti- and even de-theatralisaton
process is at work now, and the audience’s response seem to be really
enthusiastic, even if the institutional and ‘specialized’ (one may read ‘critic’s
approach’) is still reluctant.