{"id":742,"date":"2020-04-18T10:10:39","date_gmt":"2020-04-18T10:10:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/21\/?p=742"},"modified":"2022-02-05T13:14:18","modified_gmt":"2022-02-05T13:14:18","slug":"a-town-remembered-and-recreated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/21\/a-town-remembered-and-recreated\/","title":{"rendered":"A Town Remembered and Recreated"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Maria Z\u0103rnescu<\/strong>*<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our Town <\/em>(A mi kis v\u00e1rosunk<\/em>). Written by Thornton Wilder. Translated by Marcell Benedek. Adapted by Vladimir Anton and R\u00e9ka D\u00e1lnoky. Directed by Vladimir Anton. Set design: Eranio Petru\u015fca. Costumes: Bogl\u00e1rka B\u00edr\u00f3. Music: Attila P\u00e1l. Lighting design: Istv\u00e1n To\u00e1s\u00f3. Sound Design:  Hunor-Lehel Boca. Produced by the Tomcsa S\u00e1ndor Theatre, Odorheiu Secuiesc, Romania. Date of the premiere: March 7, 2019.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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An American town remembered and recreated by a Hungarian language theatre in Romania. Photo: Andrei G\u00eendac<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

I am writing this review in the strange spring of 2020, when \u201cthe Time is out of joint\u201d and the theatre does not know which way it is heading: towards distancing (in actual fact, not \u00e0 la Brecht), towards super-technology or towards another kind of death? I am writing about a performance seen at the end of 2019, a strangely constructed production, at a small Hungarian-language theatre in Romania, in a small town, staged by a young director, based upon an American text of the 1930s. A show with 40 people on stage\u2014actors, but also members of the community, from schoolchildren to pensioners, including the local choir. A show for the community. A show for whatever space or time. A show of one hundred percent emotion. I saw it again recently, in its cold online version, but the feeling was similar: one hundred percent emotion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Stage Manager of life in the small town (\u00c1rp\u00e1d Barab\u00e1s). Photo: Tomcsa S\u00e1ndor Theatre<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

A first emotion-generating element is the text\u2014apparently a strange one, in view of the year in which it was written (1938). More famous, perhaps, for his comedy The Matchmaker<\/em>, which later became the acclaimed musical Hello, Dolly!<\/em>, Thornton Wilder was awarded no less than three Pulitzer prizes during his career, including one for Our Town<\/em>. The play illustrates\u2014with equal humour and gentleness\u2014more than two decades in the history of an imaginary American locality, Grover’s Corners. The dullness of its not-at-all dull daily life is depicted in a relaxed manner, with the stories of a few simple, honest people grouped in three acts: Daily life<\/em>, Love and marriage<\/em> and then I reckon you can guess what that’s about<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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L-R Mrs. Gibbs (Zenk\u0151 Bek\u0151 F\u00f3ri) and Mrs. Webb (Kata L\u00e1szl\u00f3), best friends, neighbours, housewives and mothers. Photo: Tomcsa S\u00e1ndor Theatre<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo curtain. No scenery. The audience, arriving, sees an empty stage in half-light.\u201d <\/em>These didascalia do not seem so unusual now. A young man is singing at an old piano; he is joined by other players, with violin, banjo, double bass, guitar, drums. They tune up. A few actors arrive, a few children too; they are preparing for the show. Here comes the Stage Manager, hat on and pipe in mouth. When the auditorium is in complete darkness, he speaks: “This play is called Our Town<\/em>. It was written by Thornton Wilder, produced by Tomcsa S\u00e1ndor Theatre in Odorheiu Secuiesc, directed by Vladimir Anton.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Dr. Gibbs (Gell\u00e9rt Sz\u0171cs-Olcsv\u00e1ry) and George Gibbs (Jakab Tam\u00e1s): father-to-son talk. Photo: Tomcsa S\u00e1ndor Theatre<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The young Romanian director (b. 1983, Bucharest) decided on a classical staging of the text, which, paradoxically, becomes extremely topical due to the cues exchanged in an almost century-old hit. The show has an almost cinematographic character, in which the situations on the stage and the relations between the characters arise from simple, realistic details; they function on the principle of the parallel cut. But the significance and the poetic beauty of these details is created by the intelligent and thorough orchestration of the whole assembly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Prof. Willard (M\u00e1rta P\u00e1l-Varga) telling about the town’s history. Photo: Tomcsa S\u00e1ndor Theatre<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

A stage without any scenery is transformed to become a whole town. A long platform, framed by lights, starts from the proscenium and passes through the hall. A large street crosses the empty space. It is Main Street, the street of everyone’s childhood. The actors have become the parents, the grandparents, the neighbours whom we remember so well. The calm town doctor, the restless journalist, the housewives, the children of different ages, the emotional schoolmistress, the priest, the policeman, the bartender, they are all present. There is a natural stage-auditorium flow, the energy exchange is permanent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Love and marriage of George Gibbs (Jakab Tam\u00e1s) and Emily Webb (X\u00e9nia-Abig\u00e9l Nagy). Photo: Tomcsa S\u00e1ndor Theatre<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Just like the original play, this Our Town<\/em> is a theatre-within-theatre kind of show, where the scenes are integrated in the overall story by the Stage Manager, acting as narrator and commentator, but also as a sociologist or guide. \u00c1rp\u00e1d Barab\u00e1s is an actor who would be in demand at any theatre: good looking, good voice, charm, naturalness, professionalism. He is assigned the mission of \u201cbreaking the fourth wall” of the stage in the relationship with the audience and leading, like a human God, the rites of passage of the town\u2019s residents: birth, marriage, death, all of them linked by love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The solutions for the set design are as efficient as they are simple and inspired.  Alternating between horizontal and vertical planes, a few large neon tubes become, successively, the outline of the houses of the two young lovers, the cross that will protect their marriage and the stones that will mark their tombs. In the background: the town lights, at different moments of the day, the year, the ages, life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Life after life in the town cemetery. Photo: Tomcsa S\u00e1ndor Theatre<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDo any human beings ever realize life while they live it\u2014every, every minute?\u201d <\/em>It is a rhetorical question, and the reply is of an incredible, almost perplexing simplicity. Pronounced on the stage, though, it embraces the entire profoundness of life and death, theatre and love, the joy of living and of the sadness that follows, the live laughter and the tears in the skies. The young Emily character is given a chance that is never available to mortals: to return to Earth for a day. She chooses a happy one from her past: her twelfth birthday. She will then meet her mother and her father, maybe even her future husband and, certainly, the people of the town. She won’t only live it: she will watch herself living it. Just like in the theatre . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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One extra day to live in town for Emily (X\u00e9nia-Abig\u00e9l Nagy), together with her parents (R\u00f3bert Dunkler and Kata L\u00e1szl\u00f3). Photo: Tomcsa S\u00e1ndor Theatre<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou’ve got to love life to have life, and you’ve got to have life to love life . . .\u201d <\/em>It is a paradox that is as simple as it is true. It disregards Time and Space. A paradox that had been taken on by the creators of the show Our Town<\/em> long before \u201cthe Time was out of joint.\u201d Music was put to good use, too, without deviating into melodrama. The excellently constructed soundtrack puts together original compositions with processed live versions of hits dating from different times, from Lonesome Town<\/em>, interpreted by Ricky Nelson in 1958, to a lovely rendition of Rihanna’s Umbrella <\/em>in 2007. When the show is over, you are left with the obsessive memory of this line from the movie A Star Is Born<\/em><\/a> <\/em>(2018): \u201cMaybe it’s time to let the old ways die. . . .\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The title A Star is Born <\/em>no longer applies either to the director Vladimir Anton or to the Tomcsa S\u00e1ndor Theatre of Odorheiu Secuiesc, who, although young, have already been artistically confirmed. Their production of Our Town<\/em>[1]<\/sup><\/a> may claim the title because it speaks to feelings and not to reason at any cost. It is a show that may create an addiction in those who are still seeking emotion in the theatre. It seems hard to believe that feelings can still impress when, on the stage, everything was said that was there to be heard and everything was shown that could be seen. And I wonder now where Theatre will be heading in this third millennium, after this world crisis . . . I wonder . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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[1]<\/sup><\/a>Our Town<\/em> was nominated for Best Performance at The Romanian Association of Theatre Professionals UNITER Gala Awards, which is to take place in 2020. Also, the actor Tam\u00e1s Jakab was nominated in the category Best Debut, for his performance of George Gibbs. <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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*<\/a>Maria Z\u0103rnescu<\/strong>, PhD (b. 1969, Bucharest) is a Romanian theatre theorist and critic, as well as Associate Professor and Head of Theatre Studies Department at the National University of Theatrical Arts and Cinematography \u201cI.L. Caragiale\u201d Bucharest. She is the author of two books, Music and Muses<\/em> (2015) and The Sound of Theatre Music<\/em> (2016), and has published theatrical and musical reviews, studies and essays in Romanian and international journals. She received the Romanian Association of Theatre Professionals UNITER Award for Best Theatre Criticin 2015.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Copyright \u00a9<\/strong> 2020 Maria Z\u0103rnescu
Critical Stages\/Sc\u00e8nes critiques<\/em> e-ISSN: 2409-7411<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Creative<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

This work is licensed under the
Creative Commons Attribution International License CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":750,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-performance-reviews"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":675,"url":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/21\/russian-theatre-before-the-crash\/","url_meta":{"origin":742,"position":0},"title":"Russian Theatre Before the Crash","author":"Maria Z\u0103rnescu","date":"May 30, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Christine Matvienko* The 2020 Golden Mask Festival in Moscow was postponed because of the coronavirus threat, and likewise the accompanying Russian Case, a showcase for foreign visitors. As a jury member, Christine Matvienko saw the productions before the pandemic. Russian theatre before the pandemic was diverse and interesting both in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Performance Reviews"","block_context":{"text":"Performance Reviews","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/21\/category\/performance-reviews\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/21\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/22\/2020\/05\/PER-Rusbefore-The-Storm.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/21\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/22\/2020\/05\/PER-Rusbefore-The-Storm.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/21\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/22\/2020\/05\/PER-Rusbefore-The-Storm.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/21\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/22\/2020\/05\/PER-Rusbefore-The-Storm.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":490,"url":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/21\/theatre-is-always-alive\/","url_meta":{"origin":742,"position":1},"title":"ROMANIA: Theatre is Always Alive","author":"Maria Z\u0103rnescu","date":"May 7, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Octavian Saiu* Report from the Romanian Section of IATC \u2013 Theatre Studies \u201cTheatre is always dying\u201d is the bewildering statement once made by David Mamet. 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The dunaPart festival is billed as \u201cPlatform in Hungary,\u201d but it might be better labeled as \u201cPlatform of Hungary.\u201d An oft overlooked part of Eastern Europe, the participants often had to tread a line between being cultural ambassadors\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Performance Reviews"","block_context":{"text":"Performance Reviews","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/21\/category\/performance-reviews\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/21\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/22\/2020\/04\/image3.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/21\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/22\/2020\/04\/image3.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/21\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/22\/2020\/04\/image3.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/21\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/22\/2020\/04\/image3.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":911,"url":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/21\/the-new-soundscape-of-global-culture-editorial-note\/","url_meta":{"origin":742,"position":3},"title":"The New Soundscape of Global Culture: Editorial Note","author":"Maria Z\u0103rnescu","date":"June 21, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Octavian Saiu* This special topic of Critical Stages\/Sc\u00e8nes critiques feels genuinely . . . special, as it reflects the deep, eternal relationship between two artforms that share so much, yet remain fundamentally independent. 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