Studia Universitatis Babeș-Bolyai - Dramatica
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Teatrul Journal, between Norms and Emancipation.: The Years of the “Thaw” and Those of the New “Freeze”
Get PDFTeatrul Journal, dedicated to both professionals, and devoted spectators, appeared in 1956 following the so-called “thaw”, which took place in the part of Europe controlled by the Soviet regime after Nikita Khrushchev’s secret report at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. As we know, this “secret report” highlighted the horrors which took place during the decades dominated by Stalin, incriminated his “cult of personality”, and promised a certain openness in the fields of science, culture and arts towards communicating with the West, as well as loosening the chains of censorship. This phenomenon was felt, in a more or less discrete way, at all levels of the Romanian society; and for the theatre domain, the sign of this change of politics was the launch of the Teatrul journal, under the patronage of the writer, playwright and aesthetician Camil Petrescu2. This paper (which is part of a wider research dedicated to theatre criticism discourses in the communist period) looks at the relation between party orders and the editorial policy taken on by or imposed on the journal from its birth (April 1956) to the new „freeze” wave (1958-1960)
Revisiting Great Soviet Symbols of World War II: The Young Guard Now and Then
Get PDFThe anti-fascist organization The Young Guard (Molodaya gvardia) in a Ukrainian town is the main focus of the present analysis, offering a glimpse into the Soviet myth-making and hero-making cycle. The article unveils the ideological and cultural patterns during the Soviet period, with a focus on A. Fadeyev’s novel and on the Soviet and post-Soviet film adaptations. The case of The Young Guard organization generated a frenzy of artistic representations throughout the Soviet Union, with various degrees of demystification during the post-Soviet period. The paper highlights the differences in describing and perceiving the heroic/heroicized death in various historical periods. Soviet propaganda traits and Socialist Realism patterns are revealed as part of the Soviet cult of World War II, as well as demystifying steps in approaching the myth of The Young Guard in post-Soviet filmic productions
Mapping Inner and Outer Theater Histories: Book review
Get PDFBook review: Mark Pizzato, Mapping Global Theatre Histories (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019
Representations of Witches in the Coming‐of‐age Subgenre
Get PDFThis paper aims to analyze the portrayal of two teenage characters with supernatural powers. Norwegian film Thelma by Joachim Trier and American film The Witch by Robert Eggers deal with the topic of self‐discovery and maturation through the perspective of characters that could be, at some point, identified as witches. Approaching topics like sexual identity or family dynamics, the paper will explore the mechanisms that integrate the two films in the broad horror genre, and will also identify the elements that define them as coming‐of‐age films. Moreover, the research will focus on analyzing the symbolic level of the two films, determining the specific aspects that incorporate them in the universe of witchcraft. Regarding the coming‐of‐age subgenre, the suggested directions of analysis will be mainly based on studying the protagonists’ evolutionary course by exploring how their journey of self‐discovery affects the social and the family dynamics around them
The Actor Lost in Translation? Competence vs. Presence in the Teacher‐Director’s Stage Directions
Get PDFThis article carries on a research approach started years ago by the author, investigating the necessary conditions for producing a creative environment, favorable for the development of the actor in the acting school. Aspects of the relation between the teacher‐director with the student‐actor are discussed, and a series of possible interacting means and effects of the orality between the two are revealed
Intimate Dialogue with The Bee Inside the Head
Get PDFThis paper is structured as an analytical dialogue, challenged by the performance The Bee Inside the Head by Roland Schimmelpfennig, directed by Theodor‐Cristian Popescu (produced by the National Theatre of Târgu‐Mures, the Liviu Rebreanu Company). Starting from the definitions proposed by Hans‐Thies Lehmann in his book, Postdramatic Theatre, this analysis frames the abovementioned theatrical performance into the realm of scenic poetry, following all the stage mechanisms that avoid the classical construction of a theatrical event
L’acte manqué dans La Cantatrice chauve : un discours réussi
Get PDFThis paper is about Parapraxis in the Cantatrice chauve, which Ionesco associates with politics. The unconscious knowledge of the Cantatrice chauve (The Bald Soprano) is the knowledge of comedy and tragedy; it is a form of knowledge which leads man towards an empty word which can no longer be articulated in meaningful speech. The nagging antinomies of common life emerge in the background. There is an endless dialectic that crosses time and history, life and death, joy and pain. There is an unsolved conflict that the Cantatrice chauve holds together, thus repeating the trauma of separation and the breakdown of community ties. The tragedy of language is that you can only live in a subjective way. It is a communication which affirms the absence of communication, opening up the tragicomic horizon of language and disintegrating the power which underlies the language of communication.This paper is about Parapraxis in the Cantatrice chauve, which Ionesco associates with politics. The unconscious knowledge of the Cantatrice chauve (The Bald Soprano) is the knowledge of comedy and tragedy; it is a form of knowledge which leads man towards an empty word which can no longer be articulated in meaningful speech. The nagging antinomies of common life emerge in the background. There is an endless dialectic that crosses time and history, life and death, joy and pain. There is an unsolved conflict that the Cantatrice chauve holds together, thus repeating the trauma of separation and the breakdown of community ties. The tragedy of language is that you can only live in a subjective way. It is a communication which affirms the absence of communication, opening up the tragicomic horizon of language and disintegrating the power which underlies the language of communication
Filmic Revaluation of Political Rituals’ Conflict: Hear My Cry by Maciej Drygas
Get PDFDuring an annual state propaganda event, the harvest festival, on the 8th September 1968 a man set himself on fire at the 10th-Anniversary Stadium in Warsaw. Ryszard Siwiec's self-immolation was a protest against the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Warsaw Pact military troops (together with Polish troops). Although there were 100 000 people at the stadium, including the First Secretary of the Polish United Workers' Party as well as most notable party members, representatives from all regions of Poland and diplomatic corpuses, this fact has remained “unnoticed”. The Radio Free Europe broadcasted information about it only a few months later. In 1991 Maciej Drygas made Hear My Cry (Usłyszycie mój krzyk). This film creates/recreates social memory about Siwiec and his tragic death. Drygas used archival material, of which the most important scene is a 7-seconds film footage showing the very moment of Siwiec's self-immolation: a burning figure of a man on stadium tribunes. The Director used rhetorical devices (e.g. reframing, slow motion, a change of scale, repetition) that undone of official state ceremony (a bit like in a magic ritual), that has dominated the perception of people gathered on stadium’s tribunes, and diminish its role and meaning. What was marginalized in 1968 and, in fact, unnoticed, becomes the main focus and a very special ritual; not without hesitance, I would say it becomes a performance (with reference to R. Schechner terms). I juxtapose it with a national drama Wesele (Wedding) by Stanisław Wyspiański (1901) and especially a filmic adaptation of it by Andrzej Wajda (1972). The paper aims to discuss rhetorical devices used by Drygas in his documentary. It will also suggest that film can act as a ritual in itself and as a tool to recreate memory
A qui le tour or How to Mourn with Your Body and Henrietta Lacks – A Theatrical Take on Practical Ethics: Performance review
Get PDFPerformance Review: Agathe Djokan Tamo’s Solo, “A qui le tour”, Cameroun, Festival Sens Interdits, Lyon, 2019 ; and “Henrietta Lacks”, Nowy Teatr and Copernicus Science Center, after a text by Anna Smolar, Marta Malikowska and Maciej Pesta, directed by Adnna Smola
The Mask of the Witch: from Ritual to Carnival and Theatre
Get PDFThis paper tries to approach a problem of great interest for theatrical anthropology: the mask of the witch, raising some questions concerning its origin and antiquity. In order to propose some possible answers, the paper briefly re-examines Carlo Ginzburg’s view on witchcraft in Ecstasies. Deciphering the Witches’ Sabbath (Storia notturna), with emphasis on some elements that are still useful, in spite of the criticism this seminal book provoked. Then, some occurrences of witch masks in carnival processions are discussed, with regard to Latin or Germanic cultures. The subsequent question is: are these masks old ones, with a long evolution and permanent changes in form and signification, or – at the opposite – are they recent, appearing in carnivals only after the end of the witch-craze, in the 18th century? The article ends with some examples of witch masks used in theatre (Shakespeare – Ion Sava, Court Ballets): their carnivalesque origins – more recent or more ancient – are underlined