studia universitatis babeş – bolyai dramatica teatru, film, media 2

MIRUNA RUNCAN
a writer and also a director, not to speak about theorizing his/hers 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 a misty
one: the “theatralisation” of theatre (Runcan, 2003). 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 autonomous 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 now as mainly 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 communist propaganda machinery 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 became
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; they
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
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