Let us try something. Think about the following questions: Where do you seek refuge? The place where you are isolated from the world and all by yourself. What does it look like? The place where, whenever you visit it, you find yourself and only yourself. Do you feel good there? The place where you can’t get away from yourself, from your thoughts. You can’t hide. You must be honest with yourself. Is it a troubling thought? The mask you are wearing is your own. The mirror where you see yourself is also looking at you. A fight is raging in you: for life, for love, for vulnerability, for death. Who will win?
Tudor Lucanu is purposefully pursuing hermetic expressivity and condensed language, so that the six initial characters are replaced by two phantomatic apparitions (with masks, without masks), confined to a room made of mirrors, so that their reflections and the light make them seem plural (...) a cube made of mirrors, an alcove-cube, filled with shiny silks, with surfaces which reflect our own images (...) The game of the masks and the unleashed anger once the truth comes to light - with trash being thrown around - make the action all the more tense; thus, the text's narrative linearity is hidden under multiple layers. The dynamic scenes are intertwined with the dialogue, which also takes place within the mirror-cube, showing the true proportions of the conflict. Thus, the set - the silk which drapes the floor, representing the dark cape of death - is visually expressive. This is just one of the elements which grant the show its refined quality.
The show I watched was balanced, magical, the right duration, a show about gradual unveiling, revealing unknown meanings and symbols. If "one's legs want to walk on their own", then this uprising can be translated as bottles being violently thrown against the unfeeling walls and strident graffiti, ingeniously bringing to life an everchanging reality.
The actors have a refined way of juggling their roles, exchanging masks and costume elements, which are sometimes part of the set. Cecilia Lucanu-Donat is mirrored by the other characters, who represent multiple avatars of the same person, multiple facets of the same Dona Juana. The team successfully relies on a game of split personalities, shifting masks and confusing identity changes. Ultimately, this game of masking and unmasking is a game of essences, the source of all ambiguity, which is why the author sets the story against the backdrop of a carnival.
The poet, playwright, actor and director Radu Stanca was born on March 5th 1920 in Sebeș. He died on December 26th 1962 in Cluj. He was the son of Maria and Sebastian Stanca, a diocesan counselor, whose other son, Horia, also became a writer.
Radu Stance graduated from the Faculty of Letters in Cluj, during the period when the university had taken refuge in Sibiu. His dissertation was on the Problem of Reading (1942). His debut took place when he was 12, with the story The Legend of the Fish, which was published in 1932 in the magazine The Children's Universe. He was part of the group formed around the magazine Symposion (1938) from Cluj. In 1941, he was editor-in-chief at the magazine The Court of Longing from Sibiu and, in 1944-1945, the secretary of the publication The Romanian Nation from Sibiu. He was an important member of the Literary Circle of Sibiu, formed in 1940 around Lucian Blaga, alongside I. D. Sârbu, Ștefan Augustin Doinaș, Alexandru Cucu, Eugen Todoran, Nicolae Balotă, Eta Boeriu, Dan Constantinescu, Deliu Petroiu, Viorica Guy Marica, Ion Negoițescu, Ioanichie Olteanu, Cornel Regman, Victor Iancu, Henri Jacquier, Wolf von Aichelburg, Ovidiu Cotruș, Radu Enescu, Dominic Stanca, Ovidiu Drimba etc. In their magazine, he published his fundamental texts.
Between 1943 and 1945, he was Lucian Blaga's assistant at the University of Cluj, the department of the philosophy of culture. Between 1945 and 1949, he taught the aesthetics of theater at the Popular Conservatory in Sibiu.
On August 17th 1949 he was appointed as director of the theater in Sibiu and played a significant role in promoting their team; the most important shows he directed during this time were The Jays by Al. Kirițescu, A Lost Letter by I.L. Caragiale, Hagi Tudose by Barbu Delavrancea and The Innkeeper by Carlo Goldoni.
In 1951, on June 9th he married Dorina Ghibu, an actress at the National Theater of Cluj, with whom he would also have a child.
In 1956, on October 1st, at his suggestion and after he had advocated for it, the German section of the National Theater was finally founded.
On October 1st 1961, he was appointed as head-director of the National Theater of Cluj, where his last shows were produced: Carnival Stuff by I.L Caragiale and Uncle Vanya by A.P. Chekhov.
He was 42 when he died on December 26th 1962, at the Pulmonology Clinic in Cluj.
His literary debut took place in 1943 with his dissertation, The Problem of Reading. Then, in 1945 he published The Resurrection of the Ballad and proved to be a true theorist of the genre. In this text, he wrote about a possible "revitalization of the ballad and the tragedy in modern times". In 1960, he wrote the seminal essay Tragedy and its Dramatic Modality in Contemporaneity.
The piece that made him famous not only within the Literary Circle of Sibiu but amongst all his contemporaries was Corydon, published in the magazine Kalende, no. 10-11 in 1943. His poetry was published in posthumous volumes, in 1966, 1973 and 1980.
His poetic dramaturgy is characterized by a "tragical Blagianism", revisiting and nuancing certain fundamental motifs from the culture of humanity (Oedipus or Don Juan). His dramatic oeuvre includes 15 plays, published in a single volume in 1968: The Ladies' Dance, The Prisoner, Oedip is Saved, Critis or The Gods' Quarrel, Dona Juana (which won The "Sburătorul" Award in 1947, being promoted by Camil Petrescu and Felix Aderca). Five more plays were published in a volume from 1985: The Madonna with the Smile or The Rival;The Eye; King, Priest and Prophet; The Golden Sickle; The Faun and the Caryatid. In the volume The Tower of Babel: The Women's Strike, The Mages' Path, The Tower of Babel, The Tale of the Carpenter and his Beautiful Wife.
In a letter from November 25th 1947, sent from Sibiu and addressed to his friend I. Negoițescu, Radu Stanca proves highly exigent when it comes to his work and writes about Dona Juana: "In these miserable circumstances, I managed however to finish Dona Juana, the project I told you about in Bucharest. Of course, the form is still primitive, but I am pleased with it, as with an athletic achievement. It's like running a marathon while crippled. The literary qualities of the play are debatable. Only the attempt itself is interesting. Thus, I experimented with a play which combines tragedy and comedy. Using two couples, Don Juan-Dona Juana (the tragic couple) and Fiorelo-Fiorela (the comical couple), I imagined an almost-Mussetian adventure, with plot twists that are, I'm afraid, rather naïve, but which I completed despite my physical ailments. And this makes me happy".
The play's premiere took place on April 16th 1968 at the National "Vasile Alecsandri" Theater in Iași. At the National Theater of Cluj, it was produced by Livia Gună and was first performed on December 23rd 2000.
In the foreword to Poetry and Theater, the essayist Ion Vartic draws a detailed portrait of Radu Stanca, which sheds light on the most intimate elements of his complex personality: "He worked ceaselessly and exhaustively, he was in a continuous intellectual frenzy. In other words, he seemed to abide by a destiny which ‘strikes you with yourself', until you become your own destroyer. This ardent spiritual dispersal derives in fact from a need for tragic, total action. And destiny is always drawn to such individuals, to Achile's descendants. Destiny can transcend a biography and a creator's work, but only if it finds an appropriate personality, a decisive attitude. A writer like Radu Stanca has more than a naïve, ‘vague and ineffable' talent, he has more substance, the privilege of a creative intelligence. Theater, poetry and essays: in his work, they are part of a single oeuvre, ‘just one, like a ray of light undergoing diffusion through a spectral prism'. His writing is the symbol of a mind which ‘constantly sought to explain itself'. In this case, the writer is a personality that ‘infiltrates' all the domains of the spirit, and his work is first and foremost an act of (self-)awareness".
Dicționarul analitic de opere literare românești. Ediție definitivă, [The Analytical Dictionary of Romanian Literature. The Definitive Edition] A-M, coordinated and revised by: Ion Pop, Cluj-Napoca, Casa Cărții de Știință, 2007;
Negoițescu, I., Stanca, Radu - Un roman epistolar [An Epistolary Novel], Cluj-Napoca, Editura Dacia, 1998;
Stanca, Radu - Poezie și teatru [Poetry and Theater], in the collection ‘Our Contemporary', Bucharest, Editura Albatros, 1978;
Stanca, Radu - Aquarium. Eseuri programatice [Aquarium. Programmatic Essays], selection and foreword by Ion Vartic, edited by Marta Petreu, Cluj, Biblioteca Apostrof, 2000.
This kind of poetic theater is born out of the constant unease of a troubled humanity. Along with his poetry and essays, Radu Stanca's theater reveals his protean personality, as well as his precise position in the context of contemporary literature. The dramatic structure - almost always lapidary, condensed, combining artistic expression with the essential nature of the principle-character - requires a refined reader and an actor who can see ideas...
Modern tragedy means, first and foremost, the total involvement of one's personality in the fight against the norms which govern their world - beyond any temporary doubts: absolute engagement. Through his actions, man is clairvoyant, because the pathos of tragedy is the pathos of lucidity. Stancu's heroes are active characters, due to their well-formed consciousness; they choose to bear the consequences of their actions and have a moral code which they pursue with unmistakable passion.
In this dramatic universe, two realms keep interacting: the world "beyond" and the "present" world; the norms - which are generally incorruptible - coexist with man's desire to defeat them, in his anabatic wish to cause a mutation in the world and make it freer. In his plays, Radu Stanca takes after Blaga in a tragic sense. The frenzy of one's lived individuality is always stifled by irreducible limits. Once it is purified of the every-day, life is "elevated and deciphered, with everything behind the mask coming to light; it is depicted with its gestures, it becomes solemn, and its deepest meanings can be captured". The game of the masks is a game of essences. Once triggered, tragedy is revealed to be "an infernal machine"; when willingly triggering its mechanisms, the hero must accept their "unfreedom", as Nicolae Manolescu puts it. Because this kind of theater has a "very modern theme, which is best formulated by the title of an existentialist book": the man caught in a trap. All of Radu Stanca's heroes are trapped, one way or another, as the playwright knows how to "gather the narrative threads into a truly dramatic, unbreakable, Gordian knot, which is only resolved in death".
The complexity and seductive power of Radu Stanca's theater derive from the numerous possible levels of critical reception. In a way, this kind of poetic theater is attractive due to the gradual unfolding of its formal beauty; on the other hand, it represents the tragic staging of an existential drama. Because, after all, everything amounts to a "single character (the masked poet - our note), who plays all of the roles in order to free himself from his obsession". At the same time, the plays of this intellectualist writer, who revisits classical themes, nuancing or even dismantling their consecrated meanings, sometimes urge us to rethink certain motifs in the history of culture. There is a fundamentally literary quality to Stanca's plays, which does not, however, undermine artistic spontaneity.
Radu Stanca finds the most ingenious approach to a traditional motif in Dona Juana, where he imagines a feminine equivalent of the famous hero. This play, which may very well be his masterpiece, charms us with its perfectly balanced structure, with its formal refinement and especially through the subtle nuances of the Don Juan typology.
In one of his essays, Ortega y Gasset compares Gioconda's portrait, "i la mujer esecial", with the "fisionomia apasionada" of a man painted by "el frenetico griego de Toledo". He has the revelation of a possible ideal couple, bringing together Don Juan and his double, Dona Juana. Likewise, Ramiro de Maetzu writes about the pair and claims that it might represent a confrontation between two supremely arrogant characters.
In fact, this intuition appears, although it does not fully materialize, in the work of the myth's creator, Tirso de Molina. If Dona Juana exists, then she can only be the embodiment of invulnerable femininity and she must be fully aware of her invulnerability. While Don Juan travels the world ceaselessly, seducing more and more women, in order to maintain the aura of the seducer, Dona Juana's fame comes from her sweet passivity, from the voluptuous experience of indifference towards the dramas of her disgraced partners. In Tirso de Molina's work, Tisbea is already a kind of Dona Juana, albeit a latent one; she seems to irradiate passion but she fears "her crazy shackles", adoring her own inaccessibility like a "delicious fruit", like a priceless crystal.
Don Juan's song finds its echo in Dona Juana's silence, like a seashell's deep echo. The superb musical-passional state engulfs her, and her eyes have a curious twinkle, watching over the world with feverish, insufferable unease. She is essentially musical, as she herself admits: "All of me is singing, like a bell freed from its hinges and swaying in the wind".
This is also the source of the play's true dramatic quality. As long as they are together, the protagonists are taken by the ecstasy of anagnorisis. When they are apart, however, when they are free from each other's seduction, when they start pondering their situation, they also doubt each other and find ways around their mutual game. For the first time, cheating - one of Don Juan's typical strategies - is given a new meaning. While the trick usually facilitates and consecrates Don Juan's victory, here it signals an exit route out of that specific relational stage. By accepting the bet, Don Juan and Dona Juana renounce their own sensual genius and become - in Kierkegaard's words - a seducer and a seductress, that is, impostors. The two protagonists fail to understand that, once defeated, they are still victors, since a confrontation between them can only result in a mythical, symbolic draw. Their mistake is that they resort to cheating, thus underestimating and minimizing each other's power. However, at the very last minute music reemerges as an all-encompassing force: as their incomparable being is falling apart, the soft sounds of death comfort them, smooth as silence.
The play itself has a musical, contrapuntal sort of balance; the two couples, Don Juan-Dona Juana and Fiorelo-Fiorela, can be associated, through their fundamental tonalities, with the structure of Mozart's overture to Don Giovanni: andante-allegro, tragic and comic, and, on a symbolic level, death and life, combined. And if Max Frisch argues, in his Addenda to Don Juan, that this myth can no longer be reconsidered metaphysically, Radu Stanca, on the contrary, does just that.
Ion Vartic
In the "Euphorion" Studio, they are rehearsing Dona Juana by Radu Stanca, directed by Tudor Lucanu, who has also created the set. The costumes have been designed by Zsófia Gábor. Distribution by Cecilia Lucanu Donat and Matei Rotaru. The premiere will take place on Friday, April 7th 2023, at 7 p.m.
The play was previously produced at the National Theater of Cluj in 2000, directed by Livia Gună.
We have discussed this new version of Radu Stanca's play with the four producers, who were more than willing to tell us about their creative process.
You are once again working together, but this time there is three of you. How has your trio fared so far/how is it going? Especially since Zsofi - here with us - has joined the trio.
Matei Rotaru / Tudor Lucanu: Well, we have never actually been apart.
Cecilia Lucanu Donat: And I think this trio will endure.
T.L.: Now there is four of us, with Zsofi. But the three of us - Ceci, Matei and I - have never been apart. We have never gone through a break-up. For instance, I have been working with Matei almost constantly, ever since we graduated from university. The relationship is the same, regardless of the show we are working on. Ever since Our Brave Micșa, we have been on the team of every show produced at the National Theater of Cluj. As for Ceci, even if we haven't worked together as often, we take our work home with us.
I was going to ask you about this: how many of your domestic conversations revolve around theater?
T.L.: They don't take up very much of our time.
C.L.D.: But the conversations are always very focused. In the last 15 years that we've been part of the world of theater, we haven't really crossed paths while working. Once in Arad and this is the second time, in Cluj. But even when we are working on different projects, we still talk about them. We analyze them, we give each other feedback, even though at times it can be uncomfortable. I think it is an important and constructive thing to do, even if exchanging opinions can be uncomfortable. As for our work together: we were classmates at university and, when we started collaborating for Maidan Inferno, it felt like no time had passed at all. Everything was very natural. It happened organically.
How did you come to work on this play?
T.L.: I read many texts. And I chose this particular play after a reading I did with my two colleagues. We met at home, we all read the text. I usually do this exercise with Matei: before picking a text, we meet up and do a reading, just the two of us, in order to figure out whether what I have in mind has any coherence. While reading, I realized that this text could be produced with just two actors.
And this is how you decided to combine the five characters into only two protagonists.
T.L.: Yes, because I saw that there is dramatic potential here. At first, we liked the idea of a mirrored myth: Don Juan - Don Juana. And Radu Stanca's first stage directions are: "Dona Juana sits in her alcove, in front of a mirror". The first image in the text is: "Dona Juana is looking in the mirror. Mirroring". There is this recurrent idea: mirroring - mirroring - mirroring. So, I was wondering, what is this person like, this person who sees herself all the time and cannot see the others anymore? I think this was the first question. Afterwards, I had other questions, as well: What is the point of this character, Dona Juana? Why is she here? How would it be if she were in a space where she can only see herself? She is all alone and, wherever she goes, she can only run into herself.
Not to mention, she is confined to her tower...
T.L.: The text says that she is isolated from the world. And I kept asking questions - why does she seek isolation? What is her problem? Why won't she go out into the world? This way, I arrived at a sort of character trajectory. I won't go into the details now, but I designed this show starting from the image of Dona Juana looking in the mirror - the physical mirror, as well as the other characters acting as mirrors for her. Those characters become a sort of alter ego.
And what about Don Morte?
T.L:: Including Don Morte, because he is always there, somewhere, in her thoughts. But why does Don Morte appear in her thoughts? We started clawing away at this psychological knot, to figure out what kind of person would keep thinking of death, ceaselessly. That's how we got to talking about depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, the recurrent thought of suicide, of death as salvation. Hence, her isolation from the world around her. We kept wondering about the reason for her disappearance from the world: I am not showing myself anymore, I don't want to be seen... she rejects anyone and everyone. It seems obvious to me that there was a major deception somewhere in her past, which makes this character - Dona Juana, as we have imagined her - desire to love other people, while also being distrustful of love. She doesn't trust men, herself or her own ability to love. And so, in our show the pursuit of love becomes an inner journey. I am searching for something within. I start imagining: what would happen if I fell in love? Whom could I fall for?
So, she dreams of love. She is no seductress.
T.L.: No. No way. If we think about it, Don Juan is not necessarily a seducer, either. He doesn't seduce just for the sake of it. At least in Radu Stanca's text, Don Juan is constantly looking for love. He is searching for love in all the women in the world in the hope that, someday, he might find it. In Dona Juana's case, we encounter the idea of chastity - she doesn't give herself to men, it is men that come to her, trying to seduce her. She is the flower that everyone is talking about and everyone desires, but nobody can actually reach her. And that is because she cannot allow anyone near her. And why can't she? This is the question we tried to answer, as you will see in the show. I think we all resonated with this intriguing path, trying to figure out the characters Dona Juana and Don Juan, as well as Fiorela and Fiorelo. In fact, all these characters are her reflected image. Even Don Morte. The dialogue actually becomes a dialogue with herself. It's like talking to yourself, to your decrepit image.
I don't think that Dona Juana and Don Juan reach old age. Would you agree?
C.L.D. No, they don't grow old.
T.L. When love happens, the characters cannot go on living as they used to. Something changes. The rupture is serious. Once the two protagonists meet, their night of love takes place and the ideal of love has been fulfilled. From now on, there is no Don Juan and Dona Juana. From now on, they are different characters, they are someone else, they cannot remain unchanged.
They are a single character.
T.L.: Or maybe they are a single character... Anyway, a change occurs, certainly. A major change. Dona Juana has been feeding on this myth of untouchability. Don Juan - on the myth of the constant pursuit of love. Once he has found it, Don Juan is purposeless. Another Don Juan might emerge. There is a line in the text: "For hundreds of years, he has been searching for the same devouring shadow". For hundreds of years...
M.R.: ...But he is no vampire.
There must have been many Don Juans throughout the centuries...
T.L.: Perhaps. This idea of passing the torch is also very interesting. This Don Juan is gone. He doesn't exist anymore. Another will appear at some point. He will also look for absolute love. And so on.
Zsófia Gábor: I think this is where we found a contemporary key to the play.
C.L.D.: And a fair one.
Z.G.: Yes. Fair, too. And honest. And which can help us appreciate the myth. Because their archetypal position seemed uninteresting to us.
T.L.: Were we to stick to the myth, the legend, the result would have been a Commedia dell´Arte kind of show, with master-servant and servant-servant relationships. But we wanted to go deeper and I think...
C.L.D.: ... for us, now, the text is weightier. We found something which fits our own profile, our team. We needed a common denominator and we found it.
What about the set?
T.L.: The set is very simple. A cube which reflects everything, and the spectators can see through these mirrors and can see themselves, depending on the light. We played a lot with the idea of mirroring, reflection, seeing our inverted image. This is an interesting property of the mirror: it never shows a real image but always an inverted one. I liked this idea of the mirror - Dona Juana mirroring Don Juan, Dona Juana being reflected in the other characters - in Fiorelo, Fiorela, Don Morte.
The costumes help complete the motif of the mirror, because the fabric is silver...
Z.G.: There were at least two stages in the design process. Initially, we thought of the five characters as five entities, embodiments, apparitions, literally speaking. Fortunately, we then replaced this with the idea of a dual Dona, so we gave up on a few characters who were also supposed to wear certain costumes. They exist, but they don't appear wearing distinct costumes. We opted for a creative solution that could be in symbiosis with everything happening onstage. Especially when it comes to the affects and the depiction of neurosis. So, everything was very natural, very minimalist, but also very sensual, tactile. The fabrics have distinct textures but they induce a state of calmness. The result is eclectic, made of the remains of the initial idea, which became more moderate and coherent.
C.L.D.: Fortunately, the costumes are just right for the actors. And they love acting in these costumes. They have become a second skin.
Matei, a new Don Juan?
M.R.: He's not a new Don Juan. This is not about Don Juan anymore. Now, we only encounter Dona Juana. The show is not about the character Don Juan, the seducer par excellence. This show is about a woman's fears and quests. Coincidentally, her name is Dona Juana. She could be called any other name. She can have any name she likes. The things she is fighting, this fear of being vulnerable, of falling in love - you don't have to bear the name of a mythical character for your story to have substance. Don Juan no longer exists in this version. Don Juan is exactly what Dona Juana is picturing when she thinks of Don Juan.
A woman's ideal man, as she imagines him?
M.R.: Yes. That's why, in my mind, it has nothing to do with the other Don Juan.
I just wanted you to tell us what is different between the two.
M.R.: That's easy to do, fortunately. I think the spectators will see this difference, as well. The show is no longer about making an impression, about seduction and erotic power. It is about something much simpler and, at the same time, much more frightening.
Speaking of seduction, the spectator must also be seduced, right?
M.R.: Not necessarily.
C.L.D.: What is certain is that they won't remain unchanged after watching the show.
T.L.: At least, they'll be older by one hour...
M.R.: It's a reflection on the subject of reflection.
T.L.: We brough everything very close to the people today, to their problems and thoughts. In fact, we, as people, talk to ourselves quite a lot. We chastise ourselves, sometimes we encourage or nudge ourselves. We self-motivate. We always have a dialogue with our own selves. And this is what the entire show is built on. On the fight within, in our minds. In Dona Juana's head, a fight is also raging: she is fighting for life, for death, for love and vulnerability. I think there are a lot of themes which come up in the show.
C.L.D.: As for vulnerability - it is very difficult to find a person with whom you can allow yourself to be vulnerable.
You have found that person.
C.L.D.: Yes.
Does the mask become a fateful factor in your show?
T.L.: The show is premised on a game of fluctuating identities, just like in Stanca's text. The masks we use belong to the actors. Which becomes apparent as the show progresses. In other words - if Matei is wearing a mask in the beginning, when the change occurs you realize that the mask is also Dona Juana's face. Perhaps Matei's expression is different, but when Dona Juana exchanges masks with Fiorela, who is Matei's mask, then we are very close to Dona's true identity. She seems to be wearing no mask at all. The same goes for Fiorelo and Don Juan. The exchange is just another reflection of Don Juan. I'm afraid I'm repeating myself, but we played with mirrors quite a lot.
So, there is no alterity here. In fact, there is only one character.
T.L.: Something like that.
But then you could have asked only Cecilia or only Matei to act in the show.
C.L.D.: Yes. I think that's a pertinent way of putting it.
M.R.: There is only one person there, who has multiple physical manifestations. It's a form of double existence. But there is only one person.
C.L.D.: We did need two actors, though, we needed Matei's presence, given the circumstances and the direction we chose for this text. And speaking of vulnerability, for me it is good that I am working with Matei, because it is easier to open up to him. Were this a one-woman-show, it would have been less interesting. I'm pleased with the result.
So, we'll get a headache by the end of the show.
T.L. Not really. The show invites the spectators to think. That is, to reevaluate their own lives from another perspective.
C.L.D.: When we first met up to prepare for this show, we realized that we were on the same page, which doesn't happen that often.
Z.G.: Yes, it was about the honesty of telling each other - in the hardest moments - that we were stuck and that we needed a solution. Because we don't want to keep doing the same things over and over again. This happens so rarely.
So, you managed to find harmony even in those moments of disharmony.
T.L.: We just let each other be. So that we could discover the solutions gradually. Together. This is what a collaborative project means.
This is one of the advantages of having a small team. It would have been more difficult with a greater number of participants.
Z.G.: Yes, but you can always invite your colleagues to be honest with you.
C.L.D.: Honesty is uncomfortable in art. In theater. It can be awkward.
