THEATRE ABROAD

Raluca: We started collaborating almost by accident, after a mutual friend, also an actor, put us in touch when we were already in Holland. Although we knew each other vaguely from theatre school, we never really saw each other. Amsterdam brought us closer. So close that one day we looked at each other and asked: "Do we want to do more theatre? We do!" we replied instantly. So we soon began to quiver with impatience in search of ideas. The ideas didn't wait long and came naturally.

We have agreed on many things, so the collaboration we started led to a text written together, inspired by childhood and other personal stories, which today is part of the project "The Last Maidan", the first project of the "Theatre Abroad" team working in Amsterdam.

Raluca: What was your experience of how our project started, how did you feel about the idea, how did it evolve in your head, and how did you feel about writing?

Go: The thought that a play would be made with a piece of text written by me made me doubt a lot, it scared me... Because I have never written a play before, and even now I don't know if I would be able to do it. I was lucky with your help, otherwise I would have had a 50-page composition.

I looked rather skeptically at my piece in particular, again because the text is written by me and not someone with writing experience. But as I started writing about it I realized that the childhood games we used to play then are still my favorite games now, only I don't play them anymore by asking people if they want to play with me, I play them simply because that's how we play when we're grown-ups. It's a bit strange to see that I've been playing the same game since I was little.

After working together on the text and making it seem clear and dramatically concise, I calmed down. I like the text and I'm convinced that in the end it will be very interesting and unique.

Now I'm dealing with the nerves, the drag, the sense of ridicule, the return to the stage... I'm nervous! Big ones!

To me it already feels like a very cool project. I'm sure it will reach many people, especially those in the community of Romanians who have left the country. Because the stories are related to childhood and, like it or not, you will be nostalgic throughout the show. Surely, those who will see the show, when they get home, will wonder to themselves or think about what games they liked when they were little, or if they still play the same games reformulated in reality. They will probably think about how it affected them or shaped them.

But the show will certainly have an impact on the audience and that makes me very happy. I think it's going to be a really cool show!

I am very optimistic and have high expectations from this project.

RalucaSo trust that the audience will find interesting associations with the text, with the emotion that will be found between the lines, in the things evoked and twisted now after so many years through our eyes of children turned adults.

Go: In addition, it is worth noting the diversity of texts inspired by different generations. Between us there is an age difference worthy of note. For example, I was born in 1984, and I caught the Revolution when I was six. I didn't necessarily understand or experience communism, I was a child, I only knew how to play and get sweets. That's why I think the games I played were different from the games the other girls on the team played...

So a wide range of viewers will be touched by our stories.

Raluca: Indeed the game you are going to tell us about was not very well known and even now or especially now it is not very popular.

So we are talking about very different games, different emotions but also different times, different periods of time that have left different echoes in us depending on their consistency and ultimately a unique experience.

Go: If the show is received as authentically as it was when we first told our stories, I'm sure people will love it. Even though it won't be a show with a lot of scenery and scenes where all the characters are together on stage, but just a show based on one-liners, more: our own texts, we will make the audience come with us throughout these personal and touching stories.

RalucaTell us how you feel about the Theatre Abroad team please.

Go: I feel like the child of the band. Even though I'm over 33 I sometimes feel like I'm just playing pranks. I met the girls, the other actresses, on this occasion and I'm still trying to get to know them better.

And in my free time when we talk like people I feel like I'm stepping in alleys... But I feel the need to get to know each other better and deepen our relationship.

Raluca: I think this energy is good for work and play. But I understand how you feel. I'm somewhere in the middle. One side of the team is a few mature, wise women with families, children and day jobs... And the other side is a few young, free and modern spirits, so to speak. But even though we don't know each other very well and we still have a long way to go, all our energies come together beautifully and fruitfully. We have for each other a kindness, patience and curiosity always, support and optimism. In this sense our team has a centre, a strong soul.

Raluca: I know you learned Japanese, how did you get the idea or how did you happen to have to learn Japanese?...

Daniela: Because I happened to end up living in Japan, I lived in Tokyo for 7 years and the Japanese don't speak much English. Then I really wanted to do theatre at some point in Japanese as well, plus I had friends and I wanted to participate in their discussions, to understand their culture, to get closer to them and then knowing the language was necessary.

RalucaWhere did you study theatre?

DanielaI studied in Moscow, at the MHAT Studio School, founded by Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko. I got there early, I had just turned 16. It lasted five years. And I was formed there and as a personality, you can imagine.

There were postcards at the Russians with pictures of actors from various films that I was collecting and I really wanted to become an actress. Then I was in a children's theatre group where they made little plays. And that helped me later on to prepare for college.

Raluca: What was the first role you thought of?

Daniela: It was a monologue from an Ovstrovsky play, "The Girl Without a Dowry", very comical, about a flirtatious and charming teenage girl and the adventures she had...

I came back to Chisinau after my studies, because I was part of a group of young people from the Republic of Moldova trained for the National Theatre in Chisinau. Although I could have stayed, as some colleagues in Moscow did, but I had a relationship that I wanted to distance myself from and return home. At home there were all the conditions: there was an immediate place in the theatre, Tele Film Chisinau was still filming films and TV series, there was still a budget and a system for that. Although it was 1992, the year when all the republics of the former Soviet Union began to disperse. Then the intelligentsia, and especially theatre people, started to go to Romania across the Prut, somehow involved in this nationalist movement of unification. We were pioneers in this whole thing...

RalucaWhat kind of plays were staged at the National Theatre in Chisinau?

Daniela: Only Romanian-language plays were mounted. They staged classical but also contemporary plays, such as "Meșterul Manole", an "Amadeus" with elements of contemporary dance, "One Hundred Years of Solitude", a dramatization after Marquez...

Raluca: How did you find Romania after that pioneering attempt?

Daniela: I found it natural and interesting. Although economically people were having a hard time, it didn't make an impression on me. There was all that euphoria of getting to know a new world, of opening up to such a rich world of theatre, meeting so many interesting directors, attending festivals... Whereas we were very isolated and it was a completely different dimension.

In Romania I practically did not live but I collaborated with various theatres. From Chisinau I went directly to Japan. There was a theatre company that came to the Eugen Ionesco Theatre Biennale, and I met a Japanese man, the manager of the theatre company that came to the festival, Harunori Sato.

RalucaHow was life in Japan?

Daniela(sighs) It's impossible to compare it to anything. He called me Daniela-san, and I called him Sato-san. We were polite and a little distant. The Japanese are considerate and respectful but very different from us Romanians...

I also did theatre, a very special genre, not traditional, but I performed simultaneously in different languages, obviously borrowing elements from their culture. At the beginning I was invited in Japanese troupes to play smaller roles where I spoke a little English, also because I looked different. Then I started to produce my own shows, performed in Japanese, which led me to tour Romania, Italy, Sweden and Denmark. I did some other quite big and interesting productions, but unfortunately financially I was in deficit in most cases. I found it hard to recoup my expenses and funding was quite hard to come by. It's very difficult to just do theatre there. Most people have other jobs and do theatre as a hobby.

Raluca: When the Japanese experience was over and you returned to Europe, where did you decide to come back to?

Daniela: In the Netherlands. It's a transitional country: when I flew to Japan I always flew via Amsterdam. On top of that, when I was studying in Moscow I did an exchange with the school in Maastricht and I loved it. Then I met a Dutch family with whom I corresponded and then went to visit, and that was my connection to this country. I came back to do a workshop while I was still living in Japan.

Raluca: And in Holland you continued the diversity of your theatrical experiences by doing theatre in English.

Daniela: Yes, I have collaborated with several theatre companies. Together with a colleague I met during my master's in arts management, we produced several alternative shows in unconventional spaces. The last projects I did together with "InPlayers", a theatre group of the English-speaking foreign community with a great affinity for theatre.

Raluca: I know that for a while you stopped acting and focused on a pragmatic job.

Daniela: Yes, it happens that life goes like this, a child, family, obligations, the need for stability make you focus on more pragmatic things...

Raluca: How did you like the idea of our project?

Daniela: I found it very interesting, but I was very sceptical, because I know how hard it is to start such a project from scratch. To find a specific team, to get everyone enthusiastic, to find material that would be attractive for the stage, that would catch the audience... Our first meeting was a special one where all four of us had a 'click', and these texts turned out to be very good and theatrical, with which you can do something immediately. That's when I said to myself that it really is possible and worth investing the time and effort to be able to share these things with the audience.

Raluca: Tell a bit about the story of your text, please.

Daniela: I think I'm the only one in the group who didn't write her own text, I even have difficulties expressing myself in Romanian, because I rarely use it. But I have a childhood friend from Chisinau, Tatiana Lee, and together we sat and thought about the games we used to play as children. Together we chose a game that we remembered fondly and she wrote an original text in Russian, which I then translated and modified a bit. We knew she was going to do something special and indeed the text is very theatrical and sensitive.

Raluca: I know you wanted a deadline, now you have it, we will premiere soon, on June 9th, how does that make you feel?

Daniela: It's great that it's happening! And this deadline helps me mobilize. Our meetings and rehearsals give me a lot of energy. And it's a kind of therapy for us, a purification, we go back to ourselves, to our roots, to who we are, how we are and this process alone is extraordinary...

Raluca Tudorache, director of the play "Last Maidan" and founder of "Theatre Abroad" Company Amsterdam. Interview by Cătălina Robu, project manager of the Company.

Catalina: Ralu, I know you are from Constanta, but you studied in Bucharest. How did you get there?

Raluca: Starting to study in Constanta (laughs). I came to the theatre somewhat by accident. In high school I developed philosophical curiosities and concerns and I remember that I thought the idea of being an actor was ridiculous. I wondered: why would you try to be someone else when you don't know who you are yet...? Out of these philosophical concerns came my interest in Theology. But when I went to apply to the Faculty of Theology - Letters in Constanta, I had such a... "fall from grace..." What made me change my mind was a test I didn't know about: that of liturgical singing, and the image of me sitting in the pew and singing nasally at vespers stripped me of all confidence. I suddenly realized that I wanted to know life, that I wanted to explore and know myself, and that this study would not support me in that direction. At that moment, I lost my purpose and a bit disoriented, not knowing which way to turn, I started walking the corridors of the University of Constanta. I happened to find myself in front of the Faculty of Theatre. I had this kind of vision: I found it fascinating that through words, language, poetry - which I have always loved - I could explore the world, but also myself. I made an intuitive repertoire, in two weeks, I took the exam and, luckily for me, I was accepted.

Catalina: And how many years did you study in Constanta?

RalucaTwo years. At one point I went to an international student theatre festival and was very impressed by what I saw. I realised how high their standards were, how hard they studied, how much they trained and how far they could go. How interesting I found their experience compared to my own experience in Constanta..., where it was a young department, the teachers had no pedagogical experience, it was an experiment for them too... And I knew I didn't have time for other people's experiments, I only had time for my own experiments. That's when the idea came to me to embrace the greatest challenge: Bucharest - U.N.A.T.C.!

Catalina: And you had to retake admission?

Raluca: Yes, I took the admission again, I wanted to start over. I had a monologue from Jean Anouilh's Joan of Arc and I was wearing a white dress with bare shoulders, wide, semi-transparent and a monk's haircut. I must have been a bizarre appearance to say the least...
One of the great joys of my life was when I saw myself on the list of those admitted...

During the study we worked from morning till night at school, did a lot of exercise, read a lot and ate on the go... It was hard to process the level of information and training we went through. In addition, Gelu Colceag, our mentor, took an intense approach that year and trained us very seriously... I think he set out to turn us into some kind of theatre athletes, which I think we eventually became. Most of us became very good, complex, rich on the inside. We evolved, we performed, we transformed. We were called the Golden Generation... Those were some extraordinary years!... We were one of the last generations to perform at the Casandra Studio in Bucharest...

Catalina: So you finished theatre in Bucharest. I know it's very hard for an actor to break into a theatre afterwards. Did you manage to do that after university?

Raluca: The graduation shows were played for a while. The highly acclaimed and original "Silent Night" staged at the Casandra Studio went to a few festivals... I got the award for best actress with Auntie, which the critics of the time called the best Auntie ever made. (laughs) Then I was part of several alternative projects and attended various theatre and dance workshops. I was part of the "Theatre Without Borders" team, I performed theatre in cars, public spaces, toilets, on rooftops... I also made clowns and princesses for children's parties... The exploration continued. But I was never employed in theatre. I loved the potential of being a freelance actor. (laughs)

Catalina: Have you had offers to act in films during this period?

RalucaOne. There was a lot of casting, but I always felt that they were not a genre that filmmakers here would understand or look for. Their idea of aesthetics and the choices they made easily confused me. We made a film, somewhere around 2006, but in the end the director didn't finish the film for reasons known only to him, and we participants in the project although we had a unique and interesting experience and were proud of our work, we never saw the results. We have made small films for students in college before...
Just in the last year before I left for the Netherlands I made a model of an alternative series in collaboration with Peca Ștefan and some other fellow actors that we tried to propose as a project for broadcasting to several TV stations. It was called Defectoteka... But because of the crisis in 2008 the TV stations couldn't develop new programmes... And after a few other failed projects due to lack of various resources and inconsistency of people... I decided to leave.
After finishing my two years of Master in "Advanced Theatre and Cultural Management" at U.N.A.T.C., although I did some interesting projects, I would have liked more and I felt I was facing all kinds of prejudices, a lack of ethics and even certain fashions. I was never and was never going to subscribe to any fashionable aesthetic or mindset. Then I always wanted to travel, I had an overflowing curiosity... On the other hand I even imagined that things were more professional outside... Prejudices besides. I think what matters in the end are social skills, diplomacy, experience and a certain kind of intelligence and personal training, the ability to thrive in certain environments, which school doesn't give you... So I put my bag on the stick and chose the path of the remote...

Catalina: But how did you choose the Netherlands? How did you end up in Amsterdam?

Raluca: I had a friend who lived in Rotterdam, she invited me to visit her in 2008 and I somehow fell in love with the small towns of Holland. I found the world polite, civilized, intelligent... Coming from a hysterical Bucharest, full of greed, aggressiveness and bad taste, after several projects that fell apart after months of work... I was curious to try other things. My friend told me that it was an interesting, international place, where many artists attracted by this place meet and develop all kinds of interesting projects, where studying is accessible, where you find work easily... The way she described the picture, I found it very attractive.
I had already started trying to learn Dutch before I left, I remember I was having fun, I found it all very cute, with their dolls, their windmills, their orange and their dui-dui... When I arrived in Rotterdam proper, I stayed for a while at my girlfriend's then "fly baby, fly": I tried to find my way. It was very difficult in reality because living in the Netherlands I had to face limitations, discrimination, difficulties, such as the fact that I didn't have the right to work as a Romanian, the rents were and still are exorbitant, then all this system that you have to subscribe to and that absorbs and limits you, all this slaloming through bureaucratic matters that is very tiring... The Dutch didn't seem so nice to me anymore... But at no point did I want to go back, I told myself I would make it work.
My first job was painting a ship, a boat on which a Dutch family lived: a he and a she and two little girls with orange hair who shared lollipops with me and sang while I painted. I cleaned off the old paint and repainted, mornings in a row, paid 6 euros an hour...I remember eating a loaf of bread a day and being skinny, but somehow I was happy again. And further on I had hard work, but I think it built my character.

Catalina: And then how did you end up studying in Amsterdam?

Raluca: Looking for all kinds of levers to develop and continue what I wanted to do, I found a group of artists with whom I organized a multi-media event. Specially for that event I designed a small performance with original text and images. I had never filmed before, but I liked the idea of filming, of using media. I borrowed a camera, shot some footage and then edited it. That's how I made my first videos. My interest grew more and more until I found a platform where I could study in that direction and that's how I ended up in Amsterdam, at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy. After I was accepted, I moved to Amsterdam. My first job in Amsterdam that gave me a chance to pay for my studies was as a bouncer: I used to invite people from the street into the club and convince them to stay... Then I did promotions for this club, I was the mediator of a karaoke night and jam sessions.

Catalina: But what exactly were you studying at the academy?

Raluca: At Rietveld you go through a preparatory year before choosing a specialisation. You study several disciplines, experiment green and dry and during this year you formulate an opinion on what you want to do next. It was suggested that I go to an evening department, which was called "Dogtime" where there were people more my age (I had just turned 30)... During the day I worked and in the evening I studied. After that period I transferred to the daytime, where there were younger students, to the Audio-Visual department, where I studied another 3 years and graduated in 2015 with a Bachelor in Fine Arts and Applied Sciences. This department was more interested in video works but was also open to cross-disciplinary explorations. So we were also playing a lot with elements of sculpture, painting, poetry, song play and good times... (laughs)
I did a lot of video experiments but I graduated with a paper called "The Oppression of a Utopia" about the complex event of the Romanian Revolution of 1989 and the dispute surrounding this event. Was it real or wasn't it?... The installation, composed of a slide show, a TV monitor, two sculptures, one metal and one cement, was selected among the best graduation works of the art academies in 2015 - at the "Het Debuut XXL" Festival. The reason it was selected was the dramatic charge and humour...

Catalina: During your first years in the Netherlands, did you have any collaborations in theatre or film?

Raluca: Most of the projects I've been involved in were designed by me. But there have also been some collaborations with other Rietveld students. But for a while I didn't want to act anymore, I didn't feel the need to expose myself. I had other pursuits, deepened my work with other people as a director, filmed, edited, did performance, activism...
At one point in my sophomore year, I had an idea to do a one woman show, but it eventually turned into a video. That's when I was told that I was a good actress and that I should act. Yes, but I wanted to explore other mediums, which I still did. But everything I did, whether it was sculpture, video or installation - it had a dramatic charge, you could pick up on the kind of thinking that exists in theatre, the need for narrative and script, the consistency and presence of the author. My works after all were theatrical installations, as I consider the last project I am working on in the "Theatre Abroad" - "The Last Maidan".

Catalina: Here you are, in a few weeks you'll be playing theatre again. We are approaching the premiere of "The Last Maidan". How did this reunion with theatre come about? Was it an accident or has it been baked into you over the years?

Raluca: This event had a miraculous course from the moment I realized how much I miss theatre. The reason why I withdrew and no longer wanted exposure was not only related to my new interests, but also to the way I absorbed reality, what was happening to me at the time, but especially the people around me. It was an alienating reality, it was a culture that I didn't fully understand and that made me withdraw into myself. And that wasn't necessarily a bad thing because I came back later in force, I was longing for theatre: organic, cerebral and metaphysical! The whole structure of my being found its meaning again. I have a feeling that if I were to get up on a stage now, I would eat the boards, chew them to the last splinter and spit fire. The fire that's in my heart... (laughs)
When this feeling of longing started, I started thinking about what I would like to do in theatre. I missed acting. I realised not only that I wanted to act, but I wanted to act in Romanian because I love it, I love its depths, its dimensions, its nuances, its tenderness... I never stopped writing and so thinking about my own roots - I got the idea to write about children's games. It was a certain universe that I experienced on the maidens of my childhood, for which I will always have nostalgia and it would be fabulous if I could recreate even a glimpse...
So out of this longing for play came the idea to explore and transform games, to reintegrate them as a subject of discussion, as a mental preoccupation, as a healing process in the sometimes alienated universe of adults. On the other hand, I've always found archetypes interesting. The archetypes of games reflect very interestingly psychologically in the way we are as adults. What is acting if not psychological exploration? Working on a character is not just some play or telling a text with a particular intention, let's say something, some truth. It is a complex existential process of analysis and deepening of many truths, many mental, emotional dimensions.
That's how I started to write a text, quite poetic at first, about the Boogeyman, a strange game that has followed me for a long time since my childhood until now.
At that time I only knew Lorena Ciubotaru, I shared the idea with her, she found it interesting, but she was reserved, she didn't trust that she could write a dramatically interesting text. My vision wasn't very clear at that time either. In the meantime, I have become much more sure of my professional approach as a director, as an actor, as a theorist after all, because that's what I intend to do in the next few years, to come up with a certain approach to theatre. Things have been somewhat in suspense for a while...

Catalina: So from conception to completion, there was a period of time when this idea was in the pipeline? Are we talking 2-3 years?

Raluca: Yes, during that time I often thought about this text and I kept thinking about how to bring it to life. In September 2017 I participated in the first edition of the Romanian Community Days Festival, where I had a recital of Romanian poetry. People responded positively, touchingly, and told me among other things "we miss Romanian theatre".
In the meantime I got in touch with other groups and that's how I met other artists here. Suddenly I no longer felt like the lone actress floating on an ice floe in an Arctic desert being hunted by blue-eyed polar bears (laughs), I felt surrounded by professionals with whom I could partner and eventually develop something interesting that made sense to everyone. And that's what happened. Talk about miracles: I met Anda Bîrleanu again last year around October, and although we knew each other vaguely, we were glad to meet again. There was a good vibe from the start. I asked Anda if she was still interested in playing, she said yes, but with some reservations. In the meantime her reservations have disappeared. Anda returns to what she holds dear with a strength worthy of a sourpuss with a clear voice but also the mind of a savory and playful storyteller.
I've met other actresses before, so Daniela Mudreac came as a revelation with her splendid presence and her charmingly sassy accent, with an extraordinary life story and lots and lots of warm heart. Attracted by what was happening, Lorena Ciubotaru also returned in this format, full of enthusiasm and energy. Cristina Rotariu, who was also with us in the beginning, had to take on her full time job, but she supports us from the galleries, as we have said on other occasions, and we will certainly collaborate again in the future.
We worked on the texts that were already written, we also came up with new pieces, we coordinated this part of the writing, we gave them a theatrical, dramatic and well-structured format.
And here we are, I don't know how we transformed, but we did and we are here today 6 months after the inauguration of the project. It has been an intense, effervescent period, but in which we have already received support from many Romanians active in the Amsterdam community and beyond. So you, Cătălina, joined the project full of enthusiasm and curiosity, which is a great honour for us... Then Cătălina Negru gave us her personal and formal support... Besides, our project is currently under the umbrella of the Rompro Foundation... Then the Romanian artist Ovidiu Spaniol offered us the opportunity to rehearse in his studio, which was really useful. Oana Ștefănescu, an initial collaborator of the foundation, joined the team as a visual artist. Alex Mihăluș, actor and musician, also enjoys this collaboration even if from a distance (the way he composed the original music for our play was again a very interesting process)... Photographer Cristina Stoian made a photo report at one of the rehearsals, capturing the process in an original way... Besides, there are already a lot of friends and supporters who promote us and talk about us in very warm terms...

Catalina: What is it like for you to be both director and actor in a play? Does the freedom you have scare you?

Raluca: Freedom has never scared me. (laughs) The lack of it has always worried me. Of course it's a hard task to also direct, act, partially produce and live among all that, to develop a project like this, without financial resources, but with human resources in abundance... What frightens me is the preoccupation with a kind of control. I don't have enough control from a directorial point of view when I'm acting, because I can't see myself, obviously. That intimidates me, but it also challenges me, it's a different kind of analysis, a different kind of effort and a different kind of performance after all. In the first part of the project I was very much in charge of the others, we rehearsed individually, then we started joint rehearsals, we found space for rehearsals, we started to lift, as they say in theatre. As a director they trust me, but if I've got the hang of it, I have to show them that I can do this job very well too... I'm speaking somewhat in soldier terms, but that's how I feel. I'm a soldier on a mission.
I realise that all my thoughts and concerns of the last few years can be fructified and integrated and that I have not lived by chance during this period of searching, exploring, losing and finding. And lo and behold - I have a voice.

Catalina: Raluca, would you like to add something else?

Raluca: The monologue I wrote, "The Black Man", which is part of the play "The Last Maidan", I want to dedicate to my father who died when I was 16. I want to dedicate this dramatic poem to him not because he is no longer with us, but because I very much want him to be present in some way...
What I'm planning for the future are some ingeniously emerging ideas, ideas for new pieces, exciting and challenging collaborations, boundless explorations... (laughs)
We need to let the public who already follow us know that we have serious and consistent plans for the future and that we need to grow together. So mutual community support is important and, I believe, vital...

Dialogue between Cătălina Robu and Raluca Tudorache

RalucaCătălina, what is your experience with the theatre world?

Catalina: My experience with theatre is strictly as a spectator, so far... I was introduced to theatre late, because I grew up in a small town where there was no theatre. It all started when I arrived in Bucharest when I was 18, in 1996, I arrived there eager for culture. Until then my intersection with culture was strictly through books. I used to write poetry. Then, arriving in a city as big as Bucharest, I told myself that I couldn't miss anything. I managed to attend a lot of cultural events during my first years at university. I think I saw the whole season at the Opera, a lot of symphonic concerts, a lot of art films at the Cinemateca and... theatre. It was harder to get into the theatre, tickets were still expensive for a student, but somehow I got into a lot of shows.

I usually went alone and, I remember very clearly, the first actor who impressed me was Claudiu Bleonț. He also impressed me as a girl, I liked his kind of beauty, but I saw him play in "Sebastian". I had read Sebastian in high school, I was fond of him, including his hard life, I read his diary and he impressed me... And then I think I saw all the shows Bleonț played in at the National... In those four years of college I went to a lot of plays. I liked reading theatre less, I rather went to see it. Later, after I finished university, I started working in a multi-national and my time for culture became scarce. I went to the theatre less and less. Then I had a revival in 2009 when I said no way: I live in the capital, it's a great opportunity...
After some hard years of working through the corporate world, I said stop - it's time to get back to culture and I started going to the theatre again, but this time I was disappointed. 2009 was a year of theatrical disappointments. Everywhere I went, whether it was National or Bulandra, or alternative theatres, I was disappointed. I wondered what was going on: My God, how commercial theatre has become! Where is the theatre from '96 - 2000 that I used to see? I was finding that it had either become commercial or too philosophical or metaphysical, with a lot of messages that were hard for the viewer to digest. So it was either hard to take or extremely easy. And the viewers, most of all the viewers terrified me: there was a lot of laughing, pointless, belly laughing, shrill like that. It was loud and the audience bothered me, they were uneducated and rude...So after 2010 I told myself that I was not going to the theatre anymore.

Then life took me to Amsterdam. Soon I became a mother and in 2012 I arrived in Amsterdam. Theatre almost disappeared from the scene because the language problem came up. But I missed it, I have to admit, all these years and whenever I had the chance, I would also go to the theatre. I no longer went to the big theatres in Bucharest, but always went to see alternative projects. I think I saw some nice plays during my returns to Bucharest after 2012.

And in Amsterdam, I told myself that I had to start accessing the world of theatre. I knew Dutch, but not at a level that was reasonable enough to process the content of a play. I had only been to the theatre once, but the play had English subtitles. It was based on a Woody Allen film and it made me curious. It was interesting, but also fun to watch the acting and the subtitles. In the end, I left very excited, telling myself that I must repeat the experience.
But later on I got back in touch with theatre, but not as a spectator...

Raluca: I think the reunion you want to mention is also related to a larger project...

Catalina: It has to do with my personal journey in life. Becoming a mother ushered in a time of deep introspection. I went back in time to my 20s and mentally went through the period between then and now, when some things happened seemingly without my will. It was a period of time in which I was carried away, I let myself be carried randomly. And the present adult said stop and asked herself a serious question:

"But, really, what do I want to do in life?..."

Months, if not years, of searching followed, coupled with my decision to live in the Netherlands. I told myself that I was not going back to the corporation, as long as I had the choice. Although I learned a lot there, it is an environment that takes away all creativity, that stifles. I'm not a man who goes to work from 9am to 6pm, takes his salary, and on top of his job he also carves out a personal life and some trips... After these years of searching, I realised that I still like doing projects, as I did in the corporation, but I want to do more, and I want to do my own projects. First I started blogging. I started writing again.

Raluca: Around this concern, you also attended some writing workshops, if I remember correctly.

Catalina: After writing from my own strength and collaborating with two magazines in the country, I said I had to explore this literary side more deeply. By chance I came across some creative writing workshops in English. It was a great experience and I think they were the best courses I've taken so far, but I stopped because they were enough to give me a proper understanding of things.
Then I came across the Romanian School Amsterdam project when it was in its early stages and later I decided to get 100% involved in this project on the coordination side. It became a project that I carry with me to this day and I love it very much. But I told myself that I wanted more projects. I also wanted to explore Amsterdam on the non-profit side. I put a lot of energy into finding an organisation that I fit in with and I found it in the end. So I have two ongoing projects with an NGO called "Women Win".
During all this time of searching and adding projects to my list, I met you, Raluca, through the activities of the Romanian School. Then I saw you in that poetry performance at "Romanian Community Days", which I really liked. Moreover, I heard you say that you want to start a theatre project that you have had in you for a long time: a play in Romanian inspired by childhood games. I thought: what a great project! And how different it sounds from anything I've done before. And I jumped in!

I called you, I called you for a drink downtown, and you had no idea what I wanted from you. I didn't know what you wanted from me. I just threw myself into this project. (laughs) I just felt like that's what I had to do. I asked you at the time, "Do you need help on the administrative side?..." that you artists... Maybe you don't know how to organize yourself... I'm thinking of organizing you... (laughs) I was imagining a walnut to carry you and move you from one place to another.
I didn't expect you to get so excited and say yes. But you said yes on the first try, so I had to shake it off...

Raluca: Yes, I was waiting for you as if... (laughs)

Catalina: It was something extraordinary, I woke up after the first meeting, and only after a few months I realized that it was something extremely different... Ok, Cătălina where do you get this project from now, how do you come and contribute...? And I have to admit I had a couple of moments of panic. I felt like I couldn't help. But the dark cloud has passed, I'm finally here and I can't wait to see you on stage. It fills my heart just to think that I'm going to see the project on stage, in the audience, and that I'm part of it.

Raluca: Tell us a bit about your writing... After all, you are an artist.

Catalina: Well, I think that's all I really wanted to do when I was a teenager looking into the future. I was in a gang of boys, and I'm very proud to say this, that I spent all my time with in high school. These boys were little artists. One of them was already writing poems, another came from such an alternative family, which fascinated me coming from an absolutely normal family with no call to art, and another extremely smart one who read massively... Then I started reading assiduously to keep up with them, to not embarrass myself. The only girl in the gang, I said I'd show them! And I read like crazy in those high school years and wrote a lot of poetry.

RalucaWhat kind of poetry? Do you remember anything else? What's on your mind?

Catalina: Oh, I was writing hard... That notebook is buried somewhere in a drawer and I never opened it. I'm afraid I'm going to laugh. All I can tell you is that I was writing hard, that I wanted to make a fool of myself. I was writing about everything, about life, about love, about God..., about all my searches at that time. I didn't write with rhyme, it never attracted me, I was stuck, I wanted absolute freedom on paper. Now, when I think about writing, I feel 180 degrees away. I'm in a kind of war with heavy, hard-to-decipher art. Now it seems to me that art, in any manifestation of it, must clearly reach the soul and mind of any person, regardless of that person's upbringing. Without becoming a mass art, a mainstream culture, without falling into derision, commercial or ridiculous. But the language must be accessible. I've slowly returned to poetry. Although I love both prose and poetry, poetry is a freer form. For prose you need more discipline. I don't have the discipline for prose now: I started writing a novel a couple of years ago. It's in draft stage, I've parked it. To write a novel you have to dedicate 100%. I haven't given up on it, there will come a time for that too.

Raluca: What is the novel about?

Catalina: About me and the last period of my life. About a chick who's on a quest, who lives a lot and makes a lot of mistakes...

Raluca: I believe in parking, as long as it's not paid. (laughs)
For example, the first text of the project "The Last Maidan" sat on the bench for a few years, I thought about it often until it resurfaced and gained consistency. So I assure you, if you think about your novel, you'll come back to it. Some texts have a different fate though. I started a novel myself, the last year I lived in the country, it was called "Foreign Body". I don't think I want to bring it back to life or bring it out of the depot, but I will certainly use bits of it perhaps even for future projects in Theatre Abroad.

Catalina: I didn't make it to the title.

Raluca: I'll start with the title first. (laughs) The title is the concept that gives me the slalom flags.

Catalina: With me, the creative process is different: first the idea is born, then I start developing it. I usually get an idea when I ride my bike, that's when most ideas are born. Sometimes I stop quickly, pull out my phone and start shouting in voice-memo to keep the idea in mind. It must seem strange to passers-by. I generally only write in Romanian, and everything on the blog is translated from Romanian into English. Through poetry I'm doing therapy in a way. After writing I feel emptied in a positive sense of that emotion, but ready for other emotions. I have a kind of rush to write: to get it out, to get it out of me... I'm fascinated by the cultural interactions between who I am and the world I live in here in the Netherlands, it's a rich source of ideas and emotions, which I write about a lot.

But it was also on my bike that I got the idea to write a play, since I have been involved in this project. But I don't want to reveal any more details yet. (laughs)

Raluca: That's why we should also mention the fact that you wrote a text when we started the project "The last maidan", and I suggested you to interpret it yourself. Although you'd never played it before and it was something completely new, I knew I could get water out of a dry stone if I wanted to (laughs). But that's one of those ideas that got put on the back burner, because we decided you needed to focus on the coordination side of the project. On the other hand, the idea of working with people who are less trained in acting or amateurs is a special one that I'm interested in and would like to come back to and give it some attention when the time is right, as one of the future projects of Theatre Across Borders. It's an interesting approach to work with amateurs who don't have this kind of specific training, who don't have a certain theatrical language and understanding, who are not corrupt, so to speak, but have a civil innocence that can be very appealing.

But your text was beautifully written, cute and playful, full of candour, tenderness and I couldn't stop thinking about it.

Catalina: Raluca, I can't wait for you to make me act!... (laughs) So many new things happen to me in life that I'm open to anything: even this madness you're talking about now, to ever act...

Raluca: Although the work on this project and its development has had its ups and downs, in the end things have come together nicely, it is an interesting, positive and daring construction (laughs) and we are all fascinated and surprised by the miracle of this project.

We are truly pioneering by bringing Romanian language theatre abroad, spreading and perpetuating Romanian culture, reaffirming our identity unaltered by living among foreigners, reflecting the essence of the Romanian spirit in a changing world.

Chatting with Oana. Oana Stefanescu, poet.

Raluca: I talk to Oana Stefanescu, from the Teatru Peste Hotare team, who has very good ideas about media, visual effects, but she is also a writer and performer.

What did you actually study, Oana?

Oana: Super complicated stuff. I studied at the University of Sussex and I had the idea of doing film or photography, art basically, and I wasn't allowed..., by my parents... (laughs) Being very good at maths and computer science they thought I was going to waste my talent... As a result I compromised a bit and said I'm going to do this course, which was basically computer science, it's called Computing for Digital Media. Which meant I had to deal with a lot of programming, in addition to video editing and visual effects and stuff like that. By my third year I had an option to do an internship abroad (laughs)... I had a girlfriend who insisted we go away together. I wanted to go to Korea actually. But when the idea of going abroad struck us, all deadlines were closed, except for Europe. And we wondered which was the most prestigious university? Amsterdam! Okay, let's go! Only 5 people were admitted out of 100 applicants. I got in and did a year there... I didn't learn anything basically... (laughs) I only took courses in philosophy, aesthetics, rhetoric, literature in the Humanities Department at UVA.

Raluca: And did your parents support you, did they agree that you should leave?

Oana: Yes. I went with my then boyfriend Lupe, who is now still in London, and with my best friend, my soulmate, who is now also in Holland.

Raluca: So your parents supported you, you also had a small gang that somehow got together, somehow stays close, but how did you decide to stay here in the Netherlands?

Oana: Well, I haven't decided... (laughs) I've been here for a year and a half and I'm making plans for the future about this place because now I want to stay here. But if tomorrow I don't want to stay here, we'll go somewhere else... I feel very flexible...

Raluca: As for us: we met at the Romanian School when you dropped by the Play and Personal Development Workshop. You were collaborating with RomPro Foundation and I remember we talked and it was a nice click. I thought you were a very interesting and unfrozen kido. I love your fluid spirit and self-confidence and wish I could see that natural resilience in your work too. You've told me that you want to return more to art and use less technique.

Oana: In fact, that's the purpose of this summer. I will be resigning from the post production company where I work as a VFX artist. Composer, actually, that's the title. I've done quite a lot of commercials, where I worked on 2 D animation. But being a small company, I've learned to do everything. However, I found that in the last couple of years I had stagnated and wasn't doing what I liked anymore. That's why I decided to split up. I realized I needed to do things now more than ever. So I came back to myself again. I was writing a lot, and after a while of not doing it, I started writing and performing again.

Raluca: We had started our collaboration on The Last Maidan, where you were working on visuals and subtitles, and in one of our interviews you mentioned that you were writing poetry and that you were going to have a performance in Mezrab. I only saw a recording of that performance and felt envious. I wish I could have seen you for real and had that experience too. It was very interesting what Oana did in that performance, I even told her that her writing had a Shakespearean-ian charge. She has a lyrical and romantic way of expressing herself, but of an academic romanticism. I was suddenly sucked through an unexpected and unusual portal into an unknown world that made me more than curious. I hope you'll stay close.

Oana: After the break-up I was talking about, I've met and dated a lot of people that I simply adore, a lot of artists that inspire me a lot. I also fell in love with this city after all, I've never felt so rooted in a city and inspired. I won't be leaving anytime soon.

Raluca: I look at you and it seems to me that you're some kind of soldier too. What kind of uniform are you wearing?

Oana: Yeah, I'm a bit of a punk myself.

Raluca: Little punk (laughs)... What music do you listen to?

Oana: I listen to a lot of different things... I really like classic punk like Sex Pistols, The Clash, but I also like rock'n'roll, I listen to indie and a lot of electro. Then I really, really like jazz and classical music, completely different vibe. Quite an eclectic mix.

Raluca: Speaking of mixes, how do you like our project?

Oana: I really liked the idea, first of all, of diaspora theatre. When I read the text, I got that subtle feeling that probably Romanians who live all the time in Romania don't know if they have... A certain feeling of homesickness... That attracted me a lot.

Raluca: The feeling you get when you think of your childhood as something lost, and when you go home you hope to catch a glimpse of the remains.

Oana: Yes, you see all these things. It's all very visual.
I've always been drawn to the visual side of things, yet I most enjoy expressing myself through writing.
Writing is the first thing I started doing for pleasure.
When I was about 10 years old I had an exceptional Romanian teacher. When she first came into the classroom she said, "Take out a sheet of paper and write a composition entitled Blue." My eyes sparkled and I must have written about five pages, during which time everyone was struggling, and the teacher was very impressed. From then on I kept writing according to the teacher's ideas, then I started writing in English, until she sent me to the Olympics. In high school, they didn't give composition at the Olympiad anymore...
Later, when I was 14, I continued to write but only in English. I also started to write something that looked like a novel, an unfinished novel, a continuous story like this, about me and all the people in my life; it was a somewhat fantastic setting, but the characters were inspired by real people. I would give them to friends and colleagues to read, and word got around so much that colleagues would come to me and ask, "Put me in the story...!" It got to about 100 pages and people were reading it and raving about it.

Raluca: And what became of him...?

Oana: The dust... (laughs) At some point people stopped reading it... It's probably lying in a drawer somewhere now.
But I kept writing, and in college I turned to poetry. In fact, I only wrote poetry. Hence the content of my writing of late.

Raluca: So it seems, in the performance I saw you perform one of your prose poems. It had an impressive rhythm and melodicism.

We started collaborating with you as a visual artist, because you are now working on the visuals for the show "The Last Maidan" and you had a platform to express yourself and show us what a little genius you are... But we will collaborate even more closely on the writing and acting side. I want to work together because I write, you write, we write... (laughs )

Yes, we're already thinking about things, we've already spent how it happens in Theatre Across Borders, how it happened before The Last Maidan and how it still happens, with life stories, miraculous episodes, reveries and revelations and lots of... poetry.

Oana: There is a space where we meet and have something to say together. I haven't written in Romanian for a long time and this is a big challenge now. I've missed Romanian.

Raluca: You will be the new surprise in this project. We're already working together on a new text, so: Romanians, you're in for something. (laughs)
I propose that all future productions be based on original texts only.

Part of the Theatre Abroad Company's statement is to start from scratch and aim for infinity...