fbpx Postcards from Romania, Part Two | HowlRound Theatre Commons

Postcards from Romania, Part Two

Theater and “Planet Money”

This four-part series documents the experiences of a young, Fulbright fellow, avidly exploring theater and life in Bucharest, Romania.

Thumbnail

 

November is theater festival month in Bucharest. Over the course of two packed weeks, people jump from show to show, seeing as many as three plays in a night from three different festivals, the National Theater Festival, National Independent Theater Festival and National Operetta Festival. It’s frenetic, exhausting and overwhelming, every conversation is dominated by the “what did you see?” question and your status as a theater goer depends on if you were able to squeeze into Radu Afrim’s (a director with a cult-like following) latest show. As an audience member, I sat on an actual chair only twice during the two weeks. Students are squished into the aisles, floor, rafters, anywhere they can get away with. Fire codes don’t apparently exist in Romania and I’m not sure I want to see theater any other way, sitting cheek to cheek with students who waited in line to see the shows, for free. 


Logo for National Theatre Festival Romania.

 

On top of all of that energy, this particular November contained something especially exciting. This year held the first ever National Independent Theater Festival. Independent theater here is a young community, about 18 years old, but in the last ten years it’s exploded. There are now around 10 independent theater spaces in Bucharest alone and on any given night there are probably more independent shows than state ones. Performance space and ticket revenue are given to the performers and the space makes the majority of their income from food and drink sales (like Godot Café Teatru and Green Hours).

Basically, independent theater in Romania tries to be everything that the state theater is not, which makes the fact that both systems had national festivals in the same month even more interesting, highlighting the great divide between the grand state institutions and the scrappy independent theater spaces. So, let’s pit the teams against each other: Romanian state theater has multiple performance halls, funding from the government (about 95% of their budget), age and experience.

Independent theater has the young artists, “freedom” from state control, and offers the audience the choice to drink during the show. This divide is inherently age-ist; the older artists and administrators get to work in the state theater and rarely offer a spot to young artists, so the emerging young artists tirelessly pursue freelancing on the independent scene, playing with experimental, socially engaged, and new work, in a place where it’s safe to fail. Almost all of the living Romanian playwrights work solely in the independent theater; commission is a relatively new term here and state theaters rarely take a risk on a new play. I could also make the point that most of the people who work in the state theater were trying to make theater under communism (’47-’89), while many of the independent theater artists were busy with the business of being born and growing up during that time. 


There is the crux; if you aren’t in state theater, you complain about the lack of pay; if you are, then you complain about the lack of artistic meaning or drive.

Independent theater is very proud that it’s not state theater, that it’s a new system, and that experimentation and freedom are in the mix. But the state theater pays, and that, unfortunately, trumps all else. So, the young Romanian directors adapt to fit an aging system, they put their own desires on the back burner for the ability to feed themselves. There is the crux; if you aren’t in state theater, you complain about the lack of pay; if you are, then you complain about the lack of artistic meaning or drive. This duality goes deeper with the actors. If they are hired into a state company, they will get a monthly pension for as long as they want it. Sometimes they get cast in a show, sometimes they don’t, and it doesn’t matter, as far as the money is concerned. The rumor is that the National Theater in Bucharest has a company of 100 actors, but only 50 of them actually work on it’s stage and it’s not hiring any more. It’s hard to ask students to list their goals, when there is a profound lack of paying jobs and a feeling of helplessness in the wake of the system.

Independent theater here was originally formed in reaction to the state theater and the politics of the time, but what it’s struggling with now is how to take it to the next level. Independent theater is no longer underground; it’s mainstream, busy, and prolific. So the current question is, what is the next step for independent theater? What happens now? Is banding together and trying to join the system the answer? Or is continuing to subvert state funded arts the “right” answer? The fight between these two factions of independent theater is a fierce one, as artists struggle to define independent theater. Some believe that it’s a place to make money and present work that’s similar to the work at the state theaters; others believe that independent theater needs to be completely different from the state stage and present work that comes from an inherent need to make art. Is there a right answer? I have no idea, but the conversations here are strangely similar to the ones I have in the US.

During the Independent Festival, I was able to sit in on a workshop given by Paul Bargetto (of the undergroundzero festival) about the need for independent theaters to unite and make their voices heard by the state funders. Romanian artists and arts managers were put in touch with CultureBot, Federation of Scottish Theaters and IETM. We had conversations about the intrinsic value of art, of artists uniting to sway votes of politicians and making their voices heard. It’s an exciting conversation to have, to see the ground floor of something that is turning into a loud voice in Romania.

But, being in those rooms and listening to the conversation also makes me wonder why we continue to try and seek funds from a system that has repeatedly told us that it doesn’t give a damn about us. I sat in those rooms, wondering why we always end up talking about money, in Romania and the US. In Romania at least, the absence of clear and public budgets in all theater has led to rumors, gossip and blurry information about who actually got what. It is a small reflection of the Romanian government’s own financial records, which was recently voted “Person of the Year” by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project.

So, what happens if we stop talking about money? What if we’re open with our finances and all agree that past funding solutions aren’t going to work in the future? In our fast paced world, where everyone is trying to keep up with that big imposing country across the ocean, the time needed to explore these concepts is lost in the race for the next funding source. Do we as artists need to remove ourselves from this race and accept that if we stop trying to play the system, perhaps we can start to have the “what’s next” conversations? What happens if we, as an international community of independent artists, stop talking about money? Would that finally clear away the “you got this and I didn’t” animosity and move us into the realm of experimentation with other models?

 

 

Bookmark this page

Log in to add a bookmark
Thoughts from the curator

This four-part series documents the experiences of a young, Fulbright fellow, avidly exploring theatre and life in Bucharest, Romania.

Postcards from Romania

Comments

1
Add Comment

The article is just the start of the conversation—we want to know what you think about this subject, too! HowlRound is a space for knowledge-sharing, and we welcome spirited, thoughtful, and on-topic dialogue. Find our full comments policy here

Newest First