stage manager: Răzvan Pojonie
lights technician: Mădălina Mânzat, Alexandru Corpodean
sound technician: Vlad Negrea
video technician: Vasile Crăciun
prompter: Irina Barbir
Clara lives in Ghana. Alexandru, in Romania. Clara is 34. Alexandru is 77. They get along well, despite the age difference, the cultural discrepancies, and the secrets they keep from each other. Clara has decided to take their relationship to the next level. But for Alexandru, it's not that simple - he keeps oscillating between the past he cannot leave behind and a new love which he never thought possible this late in his life.
How Mr. Gherase Fell in Love with Clara Smith is a story in which the layers of the characters' identities blend and evaporate. Somewhere between a documentary and fiction, the show speaks about the exchanges that make up our relationships, from the most harmless flirting to exploitation.
It's clear, poor Alexandru Gherase seems to be the obvious victim of sentimental blackmail. He sold his "well-kept Dacia" to give his virtual lover 1,000 euro to help her visit him. Cosmin Stănilă turns into a convincing tired old man, who is equally ridiculous and endearing in his naivety and sincerity. Conned by a woman posing as Clara Smith, an enticing woman. Sânziana Tarța knows how to act sensual and sweet-voiced in order to be seductive.
The love story between Mister Gherase and Clara Smith is a complicated one, which navigates the layers of individual identity and oscillates between reality and fiction. The show explores the various aspects of human relationships, from harmless flirting to situations where someone ends up being exploited, in every sense of the word.
One of the most surprising aspects of the show directed by Doru Vatavului is, perhaps, the breakdown of convention, which turns it into theater within the theater - a growing trend, which, when skillfully and carefully done, can add new and unpredictable layers to a play / a show. In our case, the process unfolding onstage is the very creative process which produced the show. It's not just the story of a theatrical production; rather, it is the very genesis of the artistic product before our eyes.
Oana Balaci, Nimic nu e ce pare a fi - Cum s-a îndrăgostit domnul Gherase de Clara Smith [Nothing is as It Seems - How Mr. Gherase Fell in Love with Clara Smith] LiterNet, January 2024
The show at the National Theater of Cluj, "How Mr. Gherase fell in love with Clara Smith", written by Cosmin Stănilă and directed by Doru Vatavului, marks the advent of a new age of Romanian theater, in which the artists take a new approach to the truth of documentary information and the ethical relationship with their sources. In other words, the show addresses the problem of the artist's responsibility regarding information and the methodologies of documentary theater. Throughout the show, the author is playing with the spectators' minds, exploiting and deconstructing prejudice, launching new avenues of inquiry, and challenging the audience to judge whether the information is true, whether and how much they believe, given that the description of the show presents it as documentary theater. Fiction and truth overlap in the show, leaving a couple of unanswered questions: how much and how do we use each other, and what is the correct relationship between two people from incompatible social worlds? [...] Beyond the comical and bitter story, told very simply and without providing any solutions, the show questions the internet as an instrument. It can be an antidote for chronic loneliness, but it can also serve as a place where victims are found and made, where the distortion of truth makes it possible to oscillate between being a victim and an aggressor.
Oana Cristea Grigorescu, Etica surselor în teatrul documentar [The Ethics of One's Sources in Documentary Theater], Scena.ro, February 17th, 2024
The revelation has taken place: Cosmin Stănilă (Gherase) is amazing. He really is... old... the young actor, with his jerky movements, his trembling lips, his imperceptible tics, his shaky voice, his loudness, his grey beard and bald head, his slippers and jumper - at an age when "your knees hurt and your friends die" [...] Personally, I think this is an absolutely necessary show, a charitable SOS, full of humor, with sublime acting: in the first part of the show, Cosmin Stănilă makes a composition role fit for the UNITER awards.
How Mr. Gherase fell in love with Clara Smith is more than a show. It is an X-ray of our consumerist society, in which money is the new religion, and real feelings are trampled on by individuals whose humanity is nothing but a distant memory of the virtual world.
Cosmin Stănilă was born in 1994, in Constanța. He is now one of the most promising voices of contemporary Romanian dramaturgy. In 2017, he graduated from the Faculty of Theater and Television at the Babeș-Bolyai University of Cluj, with a BA in Acting, under the mentorship of prof. habil. Bács Miklόs, PhD, and Irina Wintze. He also got a master's degree in dramaturgy from the University of Arts in Târgu-Mureș, under the mentorship of Alina Nelega. His dissertation text was the play How Mister Gherase Fell in Love with Clara Smith, produced at the National Theater of Cluj in 2023 and nominated for the UNITER Award for the best Romanian text performed as an absolute premiere. Since 2018, he has worked as an actor at the National Theater of Cluj. As a dramatist and dramatic author, he has collaborated with state and independent institutions, both in Romania and abroad. He is also the author of the play All the things Alois took from me, produced in 2020 by the director Andrei Măjeri at the independent theater Reactor de Creație și Experiment.
A conversation with Cosmin Stănilă
Emma Pedestru: How did you come to write this text and what inspired the thematic option?
Cosmin Stănilă: The text is my dissertation, with which I graduated from the University of Arts in Târgu-Mureș. I was interested in a love story that took place later in life. I started from the true story of an old widower who met his partner, an octogenarian, online. Then, I continued to research the topic, and I simply could not ignore what I discovered, I had to integrate it in the play.
E.P.: Your play has an original structure, with many plot twists. Tell us about the process you went through to reach the final form.
C.S.: It began with an exercise proposed by Elise Wilk, a dramatist who does a lot of research when writing and who was my professor in Târgu-Mureș . This exercise came to define the play. It involved a game of cat and mouse, tracing the digital interactions between two people who were physically, economically, and culturally very far away from each other. The tensions within this relationship, all the ethically grey zones, the dance around exploitation generated the play's final form.
E.P.: Beyond the love story at the center of the play and the problem of romantic vulnerability in the digital age, the text also has wider implications, reflecting on the playwright's responsibility towards their own subject. How do you handle your relationship with your sources now, after this experience?
C.S.: My intuition tells me that this has been the most complicated relationship with my sources that I will ever have. I can't really know for certain, but it is difficult for me to imagine something more difficult to handle than the limits between exploitation and documentation. Of course, more surprising and "dangerous" stories can come up at any time. In general, I tried to treat the sources and the subject carefully and respectfully, and I will try to do this in the future, as well. I asked for permission to use the main sources, and the person in question has become a sort of collaborator, which is another important aspect.
E.P.: To what extent did your perspective on the play change when you started working on the show as an actor?
C.S.: It was a difficult process (the most difficult in my short career) because I was working on the text and on the show at the same time. I did have a valid draft when we started putting the show together. Doru, the director, had taken part in its writing before knowing he would end up directing it. We worked on the text throughout the summer and the fall, but you can't foresee certain things, so we made many changes based on what the actual performance required. I needed a lot of detachment to go from the playwright who edits the text until he is 100% pleased with it to the actor who must learn the text, because the premiere is drawing close.
E.P.: It is clear from the show's description and from what you said earlier that you started, in your writing, from a true story, which you fictionalized. How much of it is fiction, though?
C.S.: That's difficult to say. This was a process that took me two years before the premiere, but a part of it stayed as real as possible to me, in my life today. I know for certain that I changed the order of the confessions. I know certain things were not actually verbalized as such, while others were actually just a question, which became a scene. But I think we can sense the high dose of non-fiction that was injected into this parable as a whole.
E.P.: How was your collaboration with Doru Vatavului?
C.S.: I've known Doru for years, and we are close friends. We "grew up" together artistically, not always through the same processes, because we've had different trajectories, but we started writing at the same time, and we have had certain similar experiences - the Drama5 residency, for example - we gave each other feedback, we witnessed each other's accomplishments in the field of dramaturgy. I had just gotten a suggestion from Mr. Măniuțiu (who told me "I should do the play") when I invited Doru to help me bring this story to life, as he was also very interested in it. We developed a part of the concept together, throughout the previous months. Even though I trusted his intelligence, I was surprised by the ease, the humor, and the efficiency with which he was able to solve all sorts of theatrical problems. I thought he was a natural at directing, who was, additionally, very caring with his team.
