World of Culture – Stage Director Radu Afrim

Three of Afrim's plays will be staged in Sibiu.

Luana Pleşea, 28.03.2015, 14:00

Under the headline “Focus on the ‘Radu Stanca’ National Theatre — Radu Afrim”, the Radu Stanca National Theatre in Sibiu recently held a short marathon of three plays staged by Radu Afrim. They are Igor Bauersima and Rejane Desvignes’s “Tattoo”, staged by the German section of the theatre, premiered in October 2014, and the official opening of another two productions in the “Urban Fables” series, called “Giraffes” and “Buffalos”, a stage adaptaion of Pau Miro, staged in Romanian.

Radu Afrim likes to explore new texts and authors. Besides he believes the choice of the text is paramount. “The right text for the right theatre in the right city” is in fact one of his favourite slogans. The texts for “Giraffes” and “Buffalos” are actually part of the “Urban Fables” trilogy written by the Catalan writer Pau Miro, a celebrated and best-selling author in Europe, who is still unknown to the Romanian public. Here is stage director Radu Afrim:

“I first thought about the cast. “Giraffes” suits the more experienced and famous part of the company in Sibiu. They are all knowledgeable actors. “Buffalos” is rather for younger actors, where rookie actors have to bear the brunt, those actors who had few or no sophisticated parts so far. I thought that staging just one piece from the trilogy was not enough, because I felt the connection between the texts. The most awe-inspiring of them is “Buffalos”, because it’s kind of darker than the other. This is precisely why I thought I might contrast it with “Giraffes”, because I originally intended to stage “Buffalos” only. I had read the text and I very much liked this dramatic poem, although the plot in “Giraffes” is equally sad and fragile”.

The play “Giraffes” focuses on an apparently mundane object, which nevertheless marked a ground-breaking point in the lives of housewives in the1960s: the washing machine. For that matter, all of Miro’s texts seem to revolve around this house appliance.

“‘Giraffes’ also speaks about the early days of sexual emancipation, which was unknown to Romania at the time. A transvestite shows up in a pub for foreign tourists on the beach walk. I believe changing the site of the plot to Romania was a great idea. I had made use of house appliances in my previous plays too. They are beautiful, ready-made, they are not ordinary props. They have a certain magical aura about them, which enables you to toy with them. These objects take on a human dimension when interacting with people. Or rather, people lose their humanity when interacting with them. In this play, the washing machine stands for the emancipation of women from the kind of chore that was quite common in my childhood. I was born in 1968, the year of the plot in “Giraffes”, and I got to see my grandmother washing clothes by hand, down by the river”.

“Giraffes” is a play that deals with traditional values, womanhood, love and free will. Actress Mariana Mihu is cast in the role of the married woman who wants an Albalux washing machine. The actress told us that she very much resembled her character, mainly because she had lived during that period as a child and teenager, but also because her character undergoes certain changes throughout the play:

“In ‘Giraffes’ there is that refined thread of humour which greatly suits me, because we grin and bear it. And this is something good for the mind, for the soul. It’s about people’s ability to change and hope that life must have good things in store for you. It’s something I very much like, and I believe this is why I accepted the role, because I was feeling extremely weary at the time. But this idea, that people can change for the better and hold out hopes appealed to me greatly, so I moved on. For me, giraffes are animals that see beyond the immediate reality. Buffalos are resilient animals. And that’s what the play is actually all about”.

The casts for “Giraffes” and “Buffalos” are mixed. Whereas for the former, the main leads are given to experienced actors of the “Radu Stanca” Theatre in Sibiu, the protagonists of the latter are mostly young actors. While “Giraffes” is a comedy with a tinge of nostalgia, “Buffalos” is an emotion-provoking play about death and survival. The plot is staged in a laundromat: a child dies, the mother goes missing, the father goes crazy, while four buffalo-kids survive the experience. Young actor Vlad Barzanu plays the part of a young buffalo, which he describes as follows:

“They are all very confused, they are young, they try to survive these events, try to make sense of all of it. They simply try to move on with their lives, or at least what’s left of them. All they know is what they were taught and what they manage to learn from their parents. And they are fragile, just like giraffes. However they are more resilient. Each of them has his story and his challenges, which they finally overcome”.

Although “Buffalos” might seem burdensome, Radu Afrim managed to interpose a few comic episodes:

“If you don’t have a sense of humour, you are banal, both on stage and in real life. I depict the very moment when clients come to this family Laundromat, disguised as certain characters, and leave their clothes there, together with their life stories and sins. I introduced a series of jokes right in the middle of the play, which are not part of the original text, although the author does hint at it, saying that ‘the brothers fool around’. The text gives you the freedom to improvise and be creative as a stage director. Yeah, I did give it a comic dimension, but only to a certain extent. The characters in ‘Giraffes’ have their own aura of sympathy. I thought the shows could be staged together, in one night, with a short interval in-between.”

The production “Tattoo”, adapted after Swiss authors Igor Bauerisma and Rejane Desvignes’ text, was staged at the German section of the “Radu Stanca” Theatre. Here is what stage director Radu Afrim told us about the show:

“It’s unlike anything I’ve done so far. It’s a wonderfully written play, it has an old vintage touch about it, with a dense plot, loads of action and a surprising ending. The actors helped me a lot. We worked very well and had laughs together, because the show is very physical, almost brutal, and at the same time very lucid. It’s very smooth, and I got taken in by it when first reading it. It’s about video artists who tattoo their bodies to challenge their friends. It’s about friendship and genuine relationships. I have put up a lot of work into this production, so I can’t afford having it turn out a flop. Each performance makes me nervous”.