The SpectActor Meetings resume, season 2022-2023, at the "Marin Sorescu" National Theatre. The first guest in the current season is Carmen Stanciu, theatrologist and theater critic, who will hold the conference "Molière is dead! Long live Molière!".
The meeting is scheduled at the "Ion D. Sîrbu" hall, Saturday, October 29, at 4:30 p.m.
It is the twelfth year in which these meetings, which have become prestigious in the Romanian cultural world, have been held, during which more than 50 personalities from the country and abroad have been invited.
Presented by Nicolae Coande.
Carmen STANCIU is a theater scholar and theater critic. He graduated in 1995 from the Academy of Theater and Film in Bucharest, majoring in Theatrology. In 2006 he obtained the title of Doctor of Arts - Theater field at the National University of Theater and Cinematography "I.L. Caragiale" from Bucharest. University lecturer at the Department of Theater Studies, holder of the disciplines Theatrology, History of the Romanian Theater and Critical Methods.
He has published articles and studies in volumes, academic magazines and specialized periodicals; he translated plays and specialist studies from English and Spanish. He is the author of the volume Teatru-Dans. A total show (UNATC Press, Bucharest, 2007). He is a member of the International Association of Theater Critics AICT - RO and a member of UNIMA. She was invited to hold conferences in Switzerland, Singapore, Russia, Portugal, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, France, Turkey, Brazil.
In parallel with the academic activity, he was actively involved in the Romanian theatrical life in the most varied positions: theater and dance critic, literary secretary at Teatrul Mic and Teatrul Șăndărică, theater translator, producer of performances, member of juries, curator and selector or artistic director of national and international theatrical events.
He is a member of the Artistic Council of the National Theater "I.L. Caragiale" from Bucharest and the "Marin Sorescu" National Theater from Craiova.
The most recent artistic projects are: the translation and stage version of the text for the shows Cabaret by Joe Masteroff, directed by Răzvan Mazilu ("Odeon" Theater Bucharest) and The Addams Family by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice, directed by Răzvan Mazilu ("Excelsior" Theater Bucharest) . He is the curator of the festival "Buzău Iubește Teatrul" and a member of the selection jury of the UNITER Awards 2023.
About the conference:
There is, in relation to great personalities - cultural, political or social - a number of paradoxes, contradictory opinions but, above all, a number of clichés. Paradoxes are natural, since celebrity status is linked to paradigm shifts. Contradictions, too – what famous artist has ever managed to keep his plinth of admirers untainted by detractors? As for clichés…they are inevitable, whether perpetuated out of ignorance, convenience, or excess. Why would it be different in the case of Moliere?
Around the world, on January 15, 2022, the debut of the 400th anniversary of the baptism of Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known as the stage name Molière, was celebrated! (researchers have yet to discover where the artistic pseudonym comes from!). The "Sun King" himself, Louis XIV, is the one who established this tradition, in the year of the inauguration of the French Comedy (1680) naming it, in honor of the "King of Comedy" and "House of Molière!" What a joke worthy of the great dramatist, since Molière! he had died seven years before, and never acted on that stage! Admired and, at the same time, contested during his lifetime, there are enough who constantly question the authorship of his dramaturgy. That's right, no manuscript of a play has been preserved. Or, perhaps, they are still lost in some chest, and, like the stunts at the end of his comedies, will be discovered some day—to spite their detractors.
As for clichés... they say about Moliere:
– that he ran away from home to become an actor, facing his family (not true, his father financed his first theater company, created at 21!)
– that he married his daughter (actually she was the daughter of the one with whom he had a long-term relationship, but it's true that she grew up with him!)
- that he died on stage - and that's how a group of famous actors was born, who seem eager to match him (what does it matter that he didn't end up on the "holy board" but at home, in an armchair?! ).
Like any man who has become a legend, a lot is said and written about Molière. Once upon a time, French - "the language of Molière!" – it was, in Europe and the world, the language of classical culture, diplomacy, eloquence in expression and elegance in writing. Molière was the most famous ambassador of Francophonie and the most translated and performed French author - far more than the tragic poets with whom he shared the applause of the public in the great century of classicism. His greatest invention was establishing a complicity with the audience, a bond based on inducing a sense of superiority in the viewer in relation to the lack of common sense of the characters being ridiculed. The question is: what else does he say to us today? Who still believes, today, that by laughing at imposture, avarice, misanthropy, donjuanism, fraud, arivism, falsehood - you can become better? Hasn't the oft-claimed preference for comedy itself become a cliché? Have we not, in the name of the freedom to "be ourselves", become so serious that we will die of boredom? For the sake of future generations, I hope not. Is Molière dead? Long live Moliere!