ON THE SENSATION OF RESILIENCE WHEN TREADING ON DEAD BODIES
by Matei Vișniec
director and set design: Răzvan Mureșan
costumes design: Ilona Lőrincz
set and costume design assistant: Radu Lărgeanu
lighting designer: Jenel Moldovan
The play On the Sensation of Resilience when Treading on Dead Bodies was written by Matei Vișniec at the beginning of 2009, in France, at the request of the actor and director Mustapha Aouar, who led the company Gare Au Théâtre from Ivry-sur-Seine, on the occasion of one hundred years from the birth of Eugène Ionesco. The playwright has here the opportunity to bring an homage to his great predecessor, presenting in front of the public the famous absent character of the literature of the Absurd, the Bald Soprano.
The hero of the play, poet Sergiu Penegaru, tries to preserve his literary values. He writes and translates during full Communist dictatorship, and enjoys the casual chance to talk to Ionesco's heroine. They are discussing - in liberty, but especially in the prison where the hero gets to be jailed - literature or the charm of the Little Paris, resembling a couple on its first date. In later dates, her gestures become more intimate and she is finally unable to hold her tears on seeing how often she is mentioned, she, the "character who does not even exist". The writer got the idea of this character from a recollection of the essay writer and literary historian Nicolae Balotă. He recalled that during the 50s, when he was imprisoned in Jilava along Constantin Noica, he laughed heartily when their cell-mate Nicolae Steinhardt told them Ionescu's absurd play. But not just the Bald Soprano haunts the Poet's cell, but other famous figures as well: Eugen Ionescu himself, the Count of Lautreamont, André Breton, Albert Camus. Two rhinoceros also appear, at the exact moment when "theclock rings five", the hour when the famous English tea is served.
Ticket prices:
50 lei, 40 lei (depending on the seat location); 10 lei (discounts for pupils and students); 20 lei lei (discounts for pensioners).
The fact that the play On the Elastic Sensation of Stepping on Corpses still elicits the interest of Romanian theatre goers means that it is more than a reverent gesture or a deferential artifice, and the director Răzvan Mureșan strives to prove its intrinsic value. Moreover, his show on the stage of the tiny Euphorion Studio in Cluj immediately introduces us to the major problems and themes in Vișniec's dramaturgy, namely, those related to the fight against a totalitarian regime.
Adrian Țion, Observator teatral. Carusel ionescian / Theatrical Observer. A Ionescu-inspired Carousel, in the newspaper Făclia, June 18th 2018
The show is highly dynamic (...) the plot is carefully choreographed, so that the suspense endures and the revelatory climax draws the public in. There is a well-calibrated oscillation between dramatic and comical moments, without ever lessening the huge "pain" of the historical period that is being showcased; the suffering is nuanced in an authentic manner, without being obscured.
Eugen Cojocaru, Cadavrele vii ale memoriei / The Living Corpses of Memory, in the magazine Tribuna no. 380, 1-15 July 2018
Răzvan Mureșan does an excellent job directing Vișniec's play. I was truly pleased with Richard III Will Not Take Place, and now, much in the same manner, I fully empathised with the director's vision.
Restorative laughter, books which have the power to heal, evil everywhere being "defeated" by people's smiles even in prison - all these elements make Răzvan Mureșan's show a remarkable instrument against forgetfulness, helping us approach History and make sense of the absurd, which, in a monochrome reality, can only become redemptive through catharsis.
