No Makeup, No Comment!

The fifth edition of the Star Wards, organised by the “Bacovia” Town Theatre, the only festival-contest for one man shows in Romania, dedicated to the creation of the actor, was over yesterday. As it does every year, Star Awards brought together different type of recitals, texts and performance genres. Among the most inciting performances presented by the contestants was Lifers, from Theatre 74 in Targu Mures, based on Eugen Istodor's book Lifers in Rahova. On the confessions of life sentenced prisoners, directed by Catalin Chirila and performed by Ciprian Mistreanu.

It is hard to say what was the reaction expected by director Catalin Chirila in front of this document theatre sample, since he deliberately eludes theatricality and dramatic features. Four criminals naturally confess to the public without any outside interference to their discourse or any other scale of values than their own. The limits of common ethics are not at all part of the creators’ concern. Unlike other Romanian mountings with criminals on the foreground, Lifers completely cuts off the, even implicit, relation to the regular set of references. There is no perceivable scale of values, apart from the one of the killers making their confessions, in their particular rhythm and rough attitude. The force of the stories is so high that it inhibits from the very start any natural reaction from the audience – identification, understanding, compassion, contempt, etc. After all, you cannot hate some people who are guard down exposing their deeds. At least not at that very moment. All that an honest audience is left with is a critical distances to what they listen to.

The four characters have some things in common: life sentences, specific phrasing, perfectly in accord with their level of education and their messed up value system. For the rest, there’s no narrative relation between them. The creator of the performance keeps an intact documentary tone, scarifying from the very beginning any possible dramatic effect! All the more complicated for the actor. In a suit, with a bow tie, Ciprian Mistreanu sits behind cords as in a museum (or a Zoo). He looks quietly, at his convenience, in the eyes of the audience. During the intermission the audience listens to symphonic music. The first offender is 31, has been in prison for thirteen years and still seven to go until the first commission. He’s planning on being a "good boy, quiet and deferential." He doesn’t miss any opportunity to send his best regards to the ones who are free. He misses his old mother (54 years old), whom he can’t even send a flower or chocolates. All characters alternate their story from the civil biography with prison life samples (the coldness, the weekly shower, half an hour for the entire section, couplings amongst prisoners, etc.).

For the next character, which passes time sewing embroideries on a frame, Ciprian Mistreanu changes the register. There's a stronger approach, the actor spits his words and spreads energy. Coming from a family of prisoners, the offender has graduated ten grades. Convicted of two murder attempts and the assassination of an old lady whom he wanted to rob a Stradivarius from, he preaches respect for people and family. He hopes that his father and brother (“80% in my block are convicts”) will be released before Christmas, so they can come and visit. The view on the environment is discreet, with the character telling about the “pride of the pack” and that there he “even dreams of prison: they no longer have dreams from their free life.”

The common note for the four killers is related to the natural way in which they tell their stories, one of them neither freighting, not repulsive. Throughout the third monologue, the character goes from telling about the train thefts, in conspiracy with the railway personnel, to the following four crimes, quietly eating apples. There’s a slow cadence here, and Ciprian Mistreanu speaks slowly and emphatically. The low energy will be continued to the last moment, where the character is a criminal who killed his lover. Unable to take the corpse out of the house without being seen by the neighbours, he chops it and throws it into the Danube. Then he cooks one of her breast and eats it, that this will take him to a mental hospital instead of prison. The actor recites a large part of the role as if it were a litany.

As it comes out, the gradation is based on a crescendo of the crimes in the chosen texts, from the simplest thefts to calculated assassinations. If the interpretation of the first two is energetic, the following are performed in a softer register, with no force being transmitted to the audience. Maybe for the audience’s sake, and its habits of perception, it would have been more efficient to alternate the energetic scenes with the others. But as hard we’d try to judge it according to regular criteria, Lifers eludes the god-bad performance dichotomy. It nevertheless stays one of the exciting experiences of Theatre 74, where every staging shines at actors’ appearances.