Writer and director Alexandra Badia said that she feels a little traumatized by the Romanian school, and that the situation has changed in the meantime is very good. She made these clarifications in an interview with Radio Romania Actualitată.

“I couldn’t wait to learn by heart the comments published in books, that’s how it was in our time – meanwhile I understood that the situation has changed, and that’s very good.

In Romanian lessons, I had to say what the teacher said the day before or what was written in the textbook, and I couldn’t stand it. For a long time, in high school, I dreamed of only one thing: that the teacher would come to class and say: “Take a piece of paper and write what you want, what you feel at this moment.”

Whenever I deviated from what I was supposed to do, I was blamed and told that what I was doing was bad, that I had no talent, that I didn’t have good results at the Olympics or something like that,” Alexandra said. Badea.

Bucharest used to disgust me, but now I’ve seen its beautiful parts

“Bucharest has changed a lot, I come to Romania about three times a year to see my parents, or I come when I collaborate with theaters, but I didn’t come to Bucharest for a long time to work, I worked more in Sibiu. I had some repulsion with Bucharest, I could only stay for a day or two.

It’s quite a chaotic, messy and disorganized city and it’s not pedestrian friendly at all, I like to walk a lot. This year I stayed in Bucharest for about three months and this is the first time I came to Bucharest, I stayed in a hotel and I saw it differently, I saw it as a person who comes from outside and discovers only the beautiful sides, so that when we travel, we don’t want to see the ugly side of the city, but rather the positive side.

Indeed, I discovered it differently. After the rehearsals, the actors took me to places I didn’t know about before. This is really a city that is currently changing for the better.

For me, home is where it is accepted. For a long time, I realized that Bucharest is no longer my home, but my address is in France, I still pay taxes there, but I always come back with great pleasure and with new projects,” said the director.

I entered the theater through the backstage

“I did not go to the theater as a teenager, my parents did not have such a habit, and I do not remember being in the theater as a child. When I was in high school, from our classroom I could see the courtyard of the Boulandra Theater and I was always wondering what was going on there, I saw how the sets were being unloaded, the actors smoking during breaks between rehearsals, and at one point I cried , together with a colleague.

I said: let’s see what’s here, the door was open. I think I was in the tenth or eleventh grade. I remember we became friends with the flight attendants, they took us to look at the costumes of the actors, behind the scenes and a little at rehearsals.

I have always said that I discovered the theater behind the scenes. I graduated from high school in the 90s, and we were in a society where you had to be competitive, have security, be the best, and have a stable job.

Parents told us – what are you going to do? Medicine, Law, Polytechnic, ASE! All my school friends were in the same direction. All of these options did not interest me at all, but I chose ASE, international relations, hoping that one day I might go into diplomacy.

Maybe I would have felt good there if I hadn’t chosen the theater. When I wanted to go to the theater, to the director’s department, I surprised my parents, my father told me that he was afraid that I would not do anything with this work, and he did not understand how such an idea could come to my mind. , because there were no artists in our family.

He told me to go to ASE, and if I get in, he will let me go to the theater as well,” Oleksandra Badya said.

In Paris, Romania is seen differently

“Paris is very beautiful in September, as well as in April and May, when the trees are in bloom. In September it is extraordinary, because theaters are opening, there are new exhibitions in all museums, galleries, it is a very diverse cultural offer.

The advantage of France is that it is an open country for foreign artists, it encourages many artists from other countries. I discovered France gradually, for the first time at the age of 12, when my father collaborated with several French institutions.

When you are a tourist, you idealize a country, you think it is a perfect society, but no society is perfect. A year later, I was able to see all the problems of this society, and basically, through the theater I do, I had to talk about this deception, and my first play that I wrote was about this deception.

In Paris, Romania is seen differently, depending on the environment in which you are. I was lucky to live in an environment of artists and I never felt discriminated against or looked down upon.

I am sure that other Romanians have a very hard time and there are Romanians who are exploited in France in the jobs they have. I came to Paris for the first time with a scholarship, I did not go with the idea that I would stay there.

I left with a suitcase that I gave now to the National Theater for a performance, it was a suitcase from the 90s, so I came with a suitcase, but I never thought that I would break it with Romania.

This is the difference between me and those who leave because they need to work there. In fact, I went as a student to gain new experience.”

In France, people are calmer, and Romanians are warmer

“The French are calmer than the Romanians and more polite. Sometimes we look at it as hypocrisy, obviously this hypocrisy protects you. It is a courtesy that makes it easier to work, to adapt in different ways.

There is not much difference between Romanian and French audiences, theater has its own universality, they want to be moved, to be challenged, and I think it is the same openness.

I think the Romanians are warmer, but they get up from the first time the lights come on, in France the school audience is on their feet when they really enjoyed it,” Oleksandra Badia added.

After graduating from two faculties in Romania (UNATC and ASE), Alexandra Badea completed a master’s program in Theater Theory and Aesthetics at the Sorbonne and settled, unintentionally, in Paris.

In 2013, he received the Grand Prix for dramatic literature offered by the French Ministry of Culture for the play “Pulverizare”.