Actors on Actors

My childhood memory of Ștefan Mihăilescu-Brăila is that of an artist with a big nose – a natural one, it goes without saying -, who had neither a tragic aura, nor a Hamletian charisma, nor... nothing of what could have given the thrills and dependency to a kid infatuated with theatre. As I often saw him in TV sketches, I often catalogued him as a comical actor with mimics. And this is how he remained in my memory. No little was my surprise when I learnt that an actress of unique charm, artistic discernment and ever fresh sensitivity, who fills me with admiration every time I see on stage - Rodica Mandache -, chose to write a book about Ștefan Mihăilescu-Brăila. The idea, as we learn in the first pages, doesn't belong to her, but to the director of the Odeon Theatre, Mrs. Dorina Lazăr, who wouldn't allow one of the most talented actors in the history of Romanian theatre to go into dust and oblivion. Maybe this is how she remembers him, I told myself, but the opinion of a profession rocked my beliefs a little. And when a theatre director initiates a project for the consolidation of the theatre patrimony, it is worth all the praise from the very beginning.

These are the premises/ prejudices upon which I started reading An Unusual Book about an Unusual Actor - Ștefan Mihăilescu-Brăila. My ignorance was going to be severely reprimanded: not only the initiator of the project and the one who undertook writing the book place the artist among the top 5, but nearly all those interviewed end their intervention by saying that “He was an actor of genius”. And, honour bright, they are 100% convincing. You read the “Unusual Book” breathlessly, like a police novel which you can't stop reading not even to go to the bathroom. Like any volume about actors relying on colleagues' testimonials (the effort of the author to gather them seems anything but little), the book on Brăila flows like champagne. And who's better at telling stories than actors? Who can notice so many gestures, small details, sometimes terrifying, sometimes funny, like the actors who build his career on studying them?

Rodica Mandache's book is truly unusual: first of all due to its loose structure. The author is tied neither by sophisticated narrative straps, nor by construction artifices, or analytical volutes. She replaces them all with her well known ingenuity and a certain self-referential charm. The actress confesses the pleasure she takes in writing, the doubt that she will manage to give final shape to the entire collection of memories gathered. She frets about authorial doubts going through rushes of incertitude for soon to capture the reader in a particular mixture of sweetness and depth. Just as she does on stage! The undertaken doubts and awkwardness, dissipating the convention of the author master on his literary means, end up by creating a sensation of truth. And the femininity of the actress is completed by her writing skills. Read the interview “Gentleman's Brăila Lady” to discover Rodica Mandache's portraying qualities, as well as her ability for fine observation related to the man in front of her. Not to mention the liveliness of the dialogues!

The lively book, with many characters and stage apparitions, with a rich collections and testimonials and chapters preceded by mottoes from Shakespeare, employs a plain writing, easy to take in. The observations of the interviewed resound in depth fluids, and testimonials in the beginning are matched by the ones in the end for a unity nearly independent from the author's will. For example, the books tells the story of how Helene Weigel, Brecht's wife, answered, when asked by Radu Beligan what the “distancing effect” was, that “she was no theatre theorist, but if anyone wanted to really learn the answer to this question they should go to the Giulești Theatre to see Mr Puntila and his Man Matti.” (p. 53). The recommendation is joined by the explanations given by the director of the performance, Lucian Girchescu: “Brăila was magnificent in this role (...). He had everything it needed. And he also had both a remarkable native intelligence and amazing stage intelligence. He understood everything in a very particular way, he's listening, take the indication, process it and then come up with amazing effects” (p. 54). Well, the same story will reappear at pages 118-119, where director Louise Dănceanu completely overturns the perspective. She does this sparklingly, reproducing the history from Ștefan Mihăilescu-Brăila's angle, who was desperate for not getting a thing of the famous “distancing effect”. Then, not even half a page further, the delightful accents turn into shattering ones on the helplessness of the actor in old age. His physical portrait (“HE WAS UGLY. He had a huge nose, and went bald since youth – at least that's how I remember him. He had a thin lipped mouth and the lower lip was a little swelling outward and colour-faded. Two small eyes, very close together, black and bright. And that nose, so prominent it gave you the feeling it PULLED THE EYES AFTER IT”, p. 18), the human one (“My opinion is that he was very lonely, sand, slightly nasty and seemed to be a MISANTHROPE. But he had different qualities on stage, he was like a God”, p. 15) and especially professional is drawn line by line. If the author feels something is important she will not hesitate to repeat the passage, as it happens with the artist's creed (“I know theatre must do good to the audience, educate it, not degrade it. The MAN in the hall is eager to laugh, but I don't want to have him laugh at all cost. I wouldn't even need to be an actual ACTOR to do that”, p. 23), for later to detail it in the testimonies of directors Ion Vova and Dan Puican. The author completes it all with quotes from the times, including a proletcultist about the mentioned performance, published in Scînteia in 1959, and mocking discreetly theatre reviewers today.

We hear about the actor from directors he worked with, Lucian Giurchescu, Geo Saizescu, Ioana Bogdan, Cătălina Buzoianu. The latter delightfully evokes, in true storytelling talent, the poetical actor who could have become a good writer. Obviously, the salt and the pepper comes from the testimonies of colleagues, the so expressive one of the prompter Geta Panamarenco and actors Dorina Lazăr, Constantin Cojocaru, Emil Hossu, to mention only a few. There's also a chapter called “Mister Brăila and Money”, where you will be amused by his colleagues' accounts of the proverbial avarice of the artist, but there's also Florin Zamfirescu's confession in front of his students: “he was the greatest actor I met in my life in theatre.” And when professionals repeat it so many times you cannot but trust them. However, the book will convince you from the very first pages.