Those who, like myself, spent part of their existence during the Communist period remember, of course, that one of the sacred rules of the era was that those who, for one reason or another, with legal forms or some illegal border crossing, they left the country automatically became non-persons. Their name was officially erased from the memory of society, it could not be mentioned in the press. For example, in theater history textbooks or even in articles published in magazines, their presence was removed from the cast or transformed in such a way that it was impossible to recognize.

That is why I was not a little surprised that in 1985 the journal Theateran otherwise sharply censored publication and with a motley editorial board, which also included highly qualified critics and people from Bezpeka, began to publish Memories from the Romanian theater actress Leni Kaler. I confess that at the time I knew very little about the signer of the memoirs in question, and those to whom I approached for additional details shared with me rather trifles than details strictly connected with the history of the theater.

In 1997, when the publishing house named after Humanitas and Gabriela Omet, the first edition of the great bookstore success will appear, and not only the one presented magazine Mykhailo Sebastian’s image of the former star would acquire additional contours. Leni Kaler was great love Sebastian. The one who inspired them and for whom the playwright wrote Festive game. Only that love was love, so the subjectivity of Sebastian’s notations could not be more obvious. Literary critics and historians have argued that in one way or another, Leni Kaler also inspired Camille Petrescu, the author’s great rival Nameless stars. Something from Leni Kahler could be found either in Eli z The last night of love, the first night of war, or at Emilia’s, or even at Mrs. T’s Bed of Procrustes.

Above Memoirs is the main body of texts published today between the covers of the volume The artist and the mirrorappeared in 2022 under the auspices of a relatively recently established Bucharest publishing house Publisol. It is interesting that the publishing house decided to publish the mentioned volume in a series dedicated to novels. Or The artist and the mirror it’s not even remotely a novel. It is all the more interesting that the publisher does not specify that the current volume reproduces, as far as it seems, the very first edition, which saw the light of day in 2002 in the publishing house. Universal Dulsey. The publication for which I suppose the late B. Alvin, the one to whom the actress entrusted the manuscript and who published fragments of it in Notebooks of the People’s Theater named after as in a magazine Flame and who, by the way, made an effort to have a few more fragments appear in the magazine theater, wrote A word before. Reproduced exactly in the 2022 version. One Preface somewhat unusual. Not at all comiastic, in some places even critical, emphasizing both the good parts and the inherent limitations of the text. It should not be forgotten that Leni Kaler had just finished a few years of high school, which at the time was not a prerequisite for a bachelor’s degree.

Leni Kaler wrote his memoirs at the end of summer. He left the country in the late 1950s with the hope that perhaps in Israel, or perhaps in Berlin, he could receive treatment that would cure his ailment acquired as a result of a vascular accident. The accident that took her off the stage, her last appearance as Constance in Giraud’s play Crazy with Chaillot. The play premiered in April 1959.

When she started writing, the actress was already aware of the transience of her profession, which transience she admitted to B. Alvin, to whom she told that “there is nothing left of the actor.” Leni Kaler restores her own artistic existence through words (she does this honestly, without exaggeration, without unnecessary or unconvincing exaggeration, aware that she approached mainly commercial repertoire), and gently, respectfully, without offense, calling out those who in one way or another they influenced her or were close to her. From a certain Mihailescu, who was also her teacher and her first patron or, please, director) to Lucia Sturdza-Bulandra, Camilo Petrescu, Ion Iankovescu, Victor Ion Popa, to whom she owes her dedication, Soare Z. Soare, Mihail Sebastian, Gheorghe Timic and Gheorghe Vrac, whom he greatly appreciated, Maria Ventura and Elvira Popescu. About them, as well as about Sike Alexandrescu, mentioned in the epistolary genre, Tudor Muschatescu and Nikusor Constantinescu, Leni Kaler writes extensively in the main corpus of the book entitled Scenes from the theater. The Passenger and other great personalities of the Romanian theater of the interwar period are mentioned. That is why I believe that the publication would have benefited enormously if it had the necessary footnotes. Also in this sequence we find details about the arbitrary decision to remove the Jews from the theater, about the devastating bombing of April 4, 1944, about what happened after the country slowly fell under the boots of the Russians and Communists, about the accidental completion of the creative car yeru At a time when the actress lost a significant part of her former aura. Her last major role was in 1948.

Under the heading Last impressions a peculiar review of some Berlin performances has been republished. Nor can it be said that Leni Keiler learned much from the show, which was directed by Peter Brook (Seneca’s Oedipus), not from his rewriting Lear Peter Bond, no Fr Scandal with the public (the play is named in the book Public offense) of Peter Handke, not even from Amadeus Peter Shaffer. Leni Kaler also abandoned the innovations of the theater of the absurd. “At first it was difficult for me, sometimes almost impossible, to accept this avalanche antiwhich was contrary not only to my nature, but also to everything I had believed up to that time, which could be called art.”

Four other shorter sequences usefully complete the book. First of all, it is about the dialogue of 1935 (in the newspaper Ramp) with Mykhailo Sebastian, in which the actress indirectly, from her own point of view, carves out the famous Paradox Diderotien, stating that “I noticed that when I am excited, I am excited.” An interview in which the irreparable love of the interviewer for the interlocutor breathes from every pore. Then it is about a addition in a triptych thanks to Geo Sherban. It contains a biographical sketch of the actress, letters addressed mainly to B. Alvin, and an emotional portrait written by Hellu Dorian. Read the entire article and comment on Contributors.ro