Catalin Ursu at His Second Cross-Dressing

Catalin Ursu is the only male actor of the cast of the performance "Switch", staged by choreographer Pal Frenak at the National Theatre of Timisoara. I asked Catalin about how pleasant or painful was his incursion into the feminine world.

What are you doing, Catalin, in a sea of chicks?
I am a man seeking for his identity.

And does he find it?
Yes. He finds it in a group of women, where everyone has a story, or a drama, better said: rape, prostitution, abortion, extremely traumatic experiences.

Was it clear to you from the beginning what you were going to play?
No. When I heard that it is a performance dedicated to women and femininity, I asked Pal Frenak: "Well, what am I doing here? The performance is only about women, I am still a man. What’s to do about it?"

And what did Pal Frenak say?
He told me that I would have a clearly defined role, that he has an idea, but that it would be great if I came with a story and tried to find the exact answer to that question: "What is a man doing among so many women?"

Did you get from the beginning to the cross-dressing solution?
No. I initially thought of a man who is in minority in a society ruled by women. Then speaking with the director, we came with this solution of this chromosome XXY combination that results into an abnormality. The man with XXY chromosomes does not know whether he is male or female or both male and female. The path o seeking for his inner self takes him to all sorts of experiments. He eventually puts on a dress, high heel shoes, gets a hairdo and goes to the women saying, "I'm with you. I’m like you. I want to be accepted that way".

I suppose it wasn’t too hard for you to wear dress and high heels since you are quite experienced with it.
Yes, indeed. I played a cross-dressed in one of Radu Afrim’s plays. In "Roosevelt Square" I was Bibi, a tufted blonde who falls madly in love with a big green Martian.

Did you work well with so many women or did you feel overwhelmed?
I must admit it's pretty difficult to be the only man in a group of women. Firstly because when they meet, especially since it's not 2-3 women, but so many, each comes with a problem that she must talk bout, then and there. I could have never imagined of how many things a woman can be tormented. From how badly her hair looks today, to the boyfriend with whom she argued this morning or the eternal headaches. At first, I felt helpless, because I could not help them with anything, although I wanted to be somehow useful. Until I realized that actually the problem itself was not important, as talking about it. Women want and need to speak, no matter about what. And my only problem was that I had no problem that I could share with them. Yes, if I had nothing to say, that was really a problem. But slowly I began to fit in, and in the end I actually become one of them. When I got to the rehearsals in the morning and I would also say: "Giiirl, you won’t believe what happened to me!" Well, I worked with my colleagues that I’ve known and loved for so long, which made things much easier.

Was it difficult to work with Pal Frenak? After all, he is choreographer and you are actors...
It was much easier than I expected. He showed a lot of patience. And anyway, the dancing part was performed by two dancers from his company. We were the foundation of the performance, with movement and text, but the exclusive dance scenes belonged to professional ballet dancers. I, to be honest, would have liked to work more on the movement.

You wanted to dance more?
Yes. Hearing that a famous choreographer comes to work with us, I thought: "oh, dear, the performances I’ll get to!" I would have liked to see what my limits are. How far I can go with this motion part.

In the economy of the performance, however, he thought very well what he did with us. We had to function as a compact group that moves and reacts as well, and each individual personality is highlighted in this group during the performance.

Were your colleagues’ texts based on their true or invented stories?
Some worked on the principle of the "what-if..." What if my child died? What if I were a rape victim? But others were true. For example, the woman who complains that her breasts grew since she was small and for the rest of her life everyone wanted to touch her ​​breasts. That actress as voluptuous forms and perhaps, it is true that all goofs wanted to touch her or whistled at her on the street. To her, that was painful.

In response, your character complains that he has no breasts...
Yes. See? Each with their own problems...
The most touching thing in the performance is that the director used actresses of all ages and sizes.
Yes. And Mrs. Irene Flamann Catalina who is older has a superb monologue where he says: "Yes, I’ve grown old. I might not be beautiful anymore, but I am still waiting for you, Romeo!"

Her character is a woman who, poor creature has been waiting since her youth for her true love. Us, when we heard that Pal Frenak was coming, we feared a really strict casting, that he will only choose the very young actors, in a perfect physical shape; that's what you expect from a choreographer. But the surprise was all the more enjoyable and the performance all the more beautiful as he included all these different women in the casting.

You have disappointed in one respect you should know...

Oh!? What is it that I’ve done?
I expected you to wear red high heels.
Well, it was red that bought. Red with glitter. But I couldn’t resist a colleague and I exchanged them for hers. They were a little too tight anyway.

Did you manage to find high heel shoes on your size?
Yes. I went shopping with a friend, because I was embarrassed to alone and get ladies shoes. She would ask for a size 42, we were waiting for the shop assistant to leave us and then I would quickly try them on. But, it was doomed, just when I was trying one shoe and holding the other in my hand people we knew would walk into the shop. "Hey, hello. What are you doing?”, “Well, getting shoes", my friend would say, but I was the one who was trying them on. Can you imagine! Anyway, they had some gorgeous shoes my size. My colleagues envied me. "How come you get the nicest shoes?"