by: Cristina Rusiecki
03.03.2009
Why don’t I ever miss out on the opportunity of seeing a play directed by Vlad Massaci? Because:
- I’m sure he won’t aggress me
- his shows are coherent and well scaffold
- his stagings, human, are built around a consistent dose of truth (this and because the director doesn’t ever neglect the shaping of relations)
- his name is always a guarantee of sensibility
- he is part of the very few directors (about five) who are meticulous with the actors’ interpretation and – let’s admit it – a show where the actors are good remains with a joy in itself
- he proves a great finesse in outlining the feminine characters
- because many times it is reassuring for the director not to ostentatiously shove into your eyes his (pseudo)fantasy
- he is less unequal than many of our important directors
- He knows how to approach contemporary texts with the same measure and the same perfection (let’s not forget the plied by Neil LaBute from ACT – “Bash”, “Shape of Things”, “The Mercy Seat”, with a sort of acting which now is part of the public theatrical goods, but at the moment of its first staging it was a novelty – or the recent “Frumos” (“Beautiful”) by Jon Fosse from the Theatre “Toma Caragiu” in Ploiești), as with Chekhov
- he is one of the rare exemplars of the guild of nobility, common sense, culture and seriousness proven on a long term
- and – a subjective reason – I’m part from about the same generation and it seems to me that we understand the world in a similar way.
Absolutely all the above mentioned qualities are recognised, in smaller or bigger proportions, in “Fata de mătase artificială” (“The Artificial Silk Girl”) by Irmgard Keun, his staging from the Comedy Theatre. They all constitute inevitably, guarantees of an agreeable show. Another one would be the translation, always pertinent from a stage’s point of view, signed by Victor Scoradeț.
The story is simple and of a maximum emotional coloratura. A poor girl, craving for the shinny star life, leaves her small provincial town and heads for Berlin to regale herself on the dreamt glamour. If towards the end a second character hadn’t appeared, interpreted by Alexandru Conovaru, the show would have had all the characteristics of a one-woman show with Delia Nartea.
Doris’ monologue equalises with the pages from the journal of an almost-prostitute. The theatrical approach is classical; the public absorbs the story from a single perspective. The world is seen through the girl’s eyes that are full of innocence, plus the afferent dose of amorality (Doris blocks in the lavatory the titular of a line from the show in which she is a figurant in order “to steal” her sentence on stage, then she subtly takes a wolf fur from the wardrobe, because “it was so soft” and because “she wanted it so much”). But the evil will be outclassed by innocence and by her innate kindness (it is not by chance that the role from the movie was played by Giulietta Masina), by the noble gesture from the end, when she will arrange for the return of the eloped wife of the man whom she loves because she had still remained attached to her.
In such a score, the change of the registry is vital. Now merry, then sad, then nostalgic, then ironic, then exuberant, Delia Nartea successfully crosses (although from a moment on with repeatable means) those few years from Doris’ biography, finding the tone well and adequate, as long as she makes use only of a chair, a fur, a hat and a suitcase. A bit ruthless Raluca Turliu Cabilanshi’s scenography with the efforts that the actress must make, although the ultra-minimalist décor (a camera illuminated from time to time into the darkness by the background, which places the action inter-war, a door that hides one character or the other, plus some street lamps), helped by the sonorous ambiance, succeeds in immediately creating a street atmosphere, a home one, a train station one.
Easily foreseen (Irmgard Keun’s novel is written in 1932), Doris’ construction as a woman will coincide with the history of the erotic relations too rarely fortunate in the case of a poor girl, thirsty for glamour, with one exception when one of the temporary lovers will accomplish her dream of being luxuriously dressed, in natural silks and of staying in a bath with “Paris-like flavours”, for hours. With all the hunks of grief that life serves in her interactions with others – egoism, lie, lack of respect for others etc. – the character imagined by the writer keeps her naiveté and hope, as the fresh judgements on the world which is full of badness. If the show maintains its impact, this is owed to the ease which is circulating through the character’s veins and, obviously, to the humour, as in the moment in which Doris, from two-three lines, outlines the not so generous relations r\from the theatrical world (Irmgard Keun began her career as an actress, she knows what she’s talking about!). but the most captivating part remains the scene in which the true love , with Alexandru Conovaru in the role of a conqueror, a kind of Lolek in love, who “sweats” at all the adventures of getting closer. In the interpretation of such a character, only a moment would it have been necessary for the actor to fall in the exaggerate ridicule. Restrained, Alexandru Conovaru plays adorably and so human with all of the shy’s clumsiness and his discrete kindness. So much bigger will be Doris’ complex towards this man who means her no harm, who neither exploits her; moreover, he treats her with all the deserved respect.
The conclusion? There is a chance to find the right man in those three minutes of kindness a day, as it happened with the taxi driver who let sleep in his car over night. No matter how cheesy it would sound, love is the only one capable of increasing the number of minutes of altruism.
In other words, the normality of existence, humour and discretion, this is what you can expect from “Fata de mătase artificială” (“The Artificial Silk Girl”) directed by Vlad Massaci.
