FLORENCE IS I by Gellu Naum and Jules Perahim opens at Cluj-Napoca National Theatre on Saturday 25 June at 8pm.
Direction: Alexandru Dabija. Designer: Dragoş Buhagiar. Muzic: Ada Milea. Stage movement: Florin Fieroiu. Assistant directors: Andrei Măjeri, Marciana Negrea.
Cast: Irina Wintze, Ramona Dumitrean, Romina Merei, Anca Hanu, Angelica Nicoară, Patricia Boaru, Ionuţ Caras, Cătălin Herlo, Adrian Cucu, Cristian Grosu, Radu Lărgeanu, Cătălin Codreanu, Cristian Rigman, Silvius Iorga, Miron Maxim.
The play Florence Is I was written "by four hands" by Gellu Naum and Jules Perahim, "while playing in Costineşti (1956?) and Sighişoara (1958)".
The play is based on the permanent play between reality and fiction, between the present and the invasive shadows of the past. The characters constantly change their names, they split in half, they travel casually from here to there, being in a continuous Brownian motion through dramatic spaces multiplied in a kaleidoscopic manner. Gellu Naum’s characters, who are fascinating in the complicated, fantastic, web they weave around them, behave like absurd mechanism, "moving from one life to another, from oneidentity to another". Gellu Naum’s writings are difficult and unusual confessions about "unsual things, states and experiences".
"Perhaps everything is madness", said Gellu Naum, "You believe what you want. This, too, is a way of living."
