English without, but Death with a Teacher

foto: Adriana Grand

After he had staged The Lesson in English, The chairs in German and The King Dies in Romanian, Victor Ioan Frunză returned to Ionesco and to his mother tongue with a coupe staging: The Bald Soprano next to The Lesson, in a production of the Comedy Theatre. The two productions are linked by a character that crosses and transgresses them, namely Mary, the housekeeper, from The Bald Soprano, on her real name Sherlock Holmes and Marie, the housekeeper from The Lesson, both interpreted in travesty by Bogdan Cotleţ. The key of the two stories is the famous detective, a master of disguise, who in Frunză’s vision is not satisfied with investigating the crimes, because he ends up murdering himself. Sherlock Holmes, in Frunză’s vision is the girl in the house, who physically manipulates with a remote control the entire universe of the husbands. Smith, as well as the audience (he announcing the lights out signal for all, including the spectators), in The Lesson, is like a loving mother to the serial killer teacher, whipping carefully the traces of the murders and burying as deeply as it is possible the cadavers of the girls. Marie proves to be very handy to the teacher and very skilful in her trade. She opens his laptop and plugs the much-needed overhead projector for the lesson. Created with an overflowing black humour, the two productions were conceived by Victor Ioan Frunză in different registers; he declared that he thought of The Bald Soprano “as a tragicomedy taken from an existential chat” and The Lesson “as a philosophical thriller that talks about the pointlessness of good behaviour and even of knowledge”. Mr Smith, an Englishman and Mrs Smith, an Englishwoman, talk in English, in an interior like those in the study-books “English without teacher”. (To eliminate any possibility of doubt and to come to the assistance of the reviewers that appraise the weight of the scenery, the scenographer, Adriana Grand, included in the programme booklet this useful information: it weighs 120 kilograms, including the cat).

Mrs. Smith utters the words clearly, roundly and with imposture- rarely in order to give enough time to each consonant to fix itself into the minds of the student- spectators-“There, it is nine o’clock….I had a wonderful diner tonight, etc.“Trough the voice, which has a rhythmic cadence like the ticking of the pendulum (an English one evidently), a woman’s temperament comes to life, although she is a very English Mrs Smith. The brief moments, when the hysteria beats the calmness, are like the apparitions of the monster from Loch Ness, just for a few seconds, enough time though for everybody to believe that it is real. The mistress’s personality is not overwhelmed by anything except by her cat’s personality, which although it is a toy with batteries it mews solely when she is in the mood. Virginia Mirea has an extraordinary role in the “very English” Mrs Smith that wears a retro dress, like a bourgeois housewife did beck in the ’50, wearing though an electric- pink wig that a cheeky child could have coloured it while he was learning English without teacher. The second “English” woman was treated in the same way, Mrs. Martin suffered from a kind of marital Alzheimer, a disease that many wives would like to have. The Martin’s aren’t as delicious as the Smith’s, the hosts are. This situation might occur because Mirela Zeţa didn’t have enough time to entirely internalise her part. She is the only low key from a distribution in which Dragoş Huluba also shines; he is a flamboyant firefighter for whom the Smith’s equipped their house with a hydrant, so that their quest could have a direct access to the pump with which to quench the fire burning in the ladies’ hearts. Flames are projected on the hydrant in the same amusing paradox that portrays Mrs Smith as the perfect wife, but also the lethal bitch. Every now and then, the bookish conversation is interrupted by the memento of national identity: the guests, as well as the hosts, take a time out for honouring the national anthem and the flag. In The Lesson, the assiduous student that learnt by heart the answers to all the possible questions, with the exception of those like “How much is 4 minus 1?”, has as cellphone melody -a Marseillaise interpreted by a child, as a sign of her early devotion to her country and to its ideology. George Costin and Andreea Samson generate two outstanding scores interpreting the killer and his victim, while both of them are at the mercy of the “system”, in whose service the housekeeper, Sherlock Holmes, is paying armed service.