In the last months of 2019, Radu Afrim played for the Bucharest national club Three sisters. Then the director returned to the text that he staged many years ago, at a time when he was considered a terrible child of the Romanian theater. He did it in the Theater named after Andriy Muresanu from Sfantu George. At that moment, the terrible child became almost a problem child for some, as the play in question, scheduled as part of the National Theater Festival, to which many good people from abroad were invited, caused a significant amount of adverse reactions. Some of them are published in major Western publications. Here’s how it’s done, I think probably out of caution, caution, let’s call it ironic and sly, anyway, in Afrim’s nature, the director put the subtitle on the poster of his new show. (Un)naturally free scriptaccording to Chekhov.

Of course, after them Three sisters On more than one occasion, Afrim (at the time a mature director on the verge of a classic and, as a result, annoyed that he receives too many nominations and an unacceptably large number of awards) did not even show a particular interest in filming on texts certified as such by the authors of dramatic literature. With one or two exceptions (I can only recall the Iasean montage of Three sad songs based on the works of the Belgian Symbolist Maurice Maeterlik) the director preferred dramatizations. Seaside stories from Constanta, Herbarium from the National from Tirgu Mures, A dog, a dog without a person from the National Theater named after Marin Sorescu from Kraiova, that is, everything that the artist did during 2022 begins with self-made stagings.

Rehearsal for a better world from the National Theater named after Il Caragiale from Bucharest, has as textual support a dramatization based on a very good novel by Mihai Radu, which appeared in the summer of 2022 on Polisher. Only this time the author of the dramatization is not Radu Afrim, but the novelist himself, who was accompanied in his endeavor by Ionuc Sotsiu, who has relative experience in this field.

as i said Rehearsal for a better world this is what is called a good novel. Probably the best creation of Mihai Radu. The story told between the covers fits Radu Afrim like a glove. That which reminds, i.e. repeats, to repeat, thanks to the whimsical, meandering memory games of Paul Negrescu, the protagonist of the work, begins in the 70s and 80s, with additional details about the last communist decade, and ends somewhere in the present day. In Romanian, we find sick people, more or less nice old people, pensioners in a nursing home with an ironic name mansion of hopeamnesiacs, cowards and non-conformists, families destined to hate, to hate, as André Gide famously called it, sons and daughters fleeing violent parents, creatures marked by ambiguity, impudence, all manner of behavioral oddities. Part of a complex family history. Plus the lines are both smart and cynical. And lots and lots of dark humor. And of course last but not least, as much cynicism as possible. More correctly, black humor, located next to cynicism. And we also find fear in the face of the inevitability of death, as well as finally facing the hitherto hidden truths of some existences.

Words from Rehearsal for a better worldwhether contained in dialogues or in passages containing what Paul Negrescu I think now In a loud voice (answers are heard in the program with echoecho is part of the sound universe created by the director), he doesn’t call at all like hell, the story of a character who came to the fore during the revolution, not like the good or not-so-good Romanian films made since 1990. Regardless of whether they belong to the Judean Council or not. Anyone who sees the play will understand that the mention of the famous director’s name in this chronicle is not accidental.

The novel, like the montage, uses a feature of modern Romanian cinema. Misfortune. And yet stinginess plays a leading role here, that is, both in the text and in the performance. As we also find big sequences in this show, the eye of the director and his staff is lavishly focused on details. As it happened in the new French novel, in the films of Alain René, as it happens in modern Romanian cinematographic productions.

The whole story unfolds in houses and apartments built before 1989, which remained so even after the revolution. Reminiscent of the decor invented by Iryna Mosku consciously those with Retro bird and, later, from Grand Hotel Pasarea Retro. Houses of the 60s and 70s, wagon-type apartments, kitchens where there is a lot of talk.

Endowed with the role of the first playwright, Mihai Radu wanted—which is understandable in human terms—to bring to the stage everything contained in the novel. A fact with consequences, not always helpful, in a show that has gone beyond the forgiven. Some lengths could be eliminated in future performances. The show from the premiere proves a certain fragility. It was like a test flight. This feature is more pronounced than it usually is in other cases.

Mihai Radu, Ionuc Sociu and, of course, Radu Afrim wanted to clarify the biography of all the characters on stage. So not only Paul and Mircea Negrescu, not only Madalina, but also others got solo numbers. We also learn something about Dinah “The Flutist” and about Tamira with her disturbing impressions, some of which were perceived by the character’s very condition as a buffer in the face of death, about cocalars, even about Remy the dog. How else? – says There are relatively few changes in the script of the drama compared to what we find on the pages of the novel. Two or three more characters, some very tasty, a certain weight gain of Laurentiu Cordos, once a doctor, now a man with a terrible smell, at any rate, a Transylvanian man African par excellence, a change in the way of being of some of them (exceptionally also through writing and through the stage performance of the couple Slavic-Gelu cocolari), increasing the presence of nurse Tamira, who alone takes care of the dying. Here Mircha became the mayor, as well as the mayor’s wife. There are also two or three symbols in the minus. In the play, the story begins a little differently than in the book, but I found the opening part, reflecting on the benefits of childhood, very touching. The ending, perhaps still too long, perhaps even repetitive, if not even indecisive, has also taken on additional connotations. Reinforcement of one of the main themes of the play. Most likely, the most painful. It is the acceptance or rejection of what may be black in the biography of our parents. What was hidden from the eyes of the world (the metaphor of the eye is one of the strongest in the play) is now raging.

We find it in Rehearsal for a better world to Rada Afrim in its pure form. His latest play is placed at the junction of comic and tragic, telling in the specific style of the director about everything that is hidden in the dirt of our everyday life. The production includes music, dances (choreography by Flavia Giurgiu), one of them, Tamira, is performed to the song of Domnytsia Trop. A folk singer I met at a fitting after The Forest of the Hanged. I also thought the moment with the dancing woman was good and had a lot of impact cha chaRead the whole article and comment on Contributors.ro