The old man and the euthanizer man

Synopsis

"The old man and the euthanasia man" is the show that invites meditation on an acute problem of the contemporary world: the problem of assisted death, to which are added complementary themes concerning otherness (ethnic, religious, sexual, etc.). These are mainly the pretext. Time, with its dramas, is seen as an inevitable race towards degradation. At the end of life, the Old Man wants to finish this race by consciously mastering his own death, like the philosopher in the Platonic dialogue Phaidon, who "learns" to die, prepares for death. Instead of a "cold death", which mutilates the human being, "gentle death" appears, through the presence of eros, but also through the reinterpreted religious symbols that the "Last Supper" suggests. He who knows that he will die speaks with secret meanings to others. The act of tamed death thus acquires an initiatory dimension. The actors of the unfolding drama are caught in the vortex of their own conception of the world and cannot get out of their narrow circle of passions, vices, interests.

Author:

The theater? It all started with a play, in the 90s. I'm inspired by Plato's dialogues. The old man imagined Athens as a huge stage, in which Socrates wore the mask of irony and pulled the tongues of his fellow citizens to see what was in their... head. Because they didn't really want to talk about it... And so I invented an eristic dialogue, but with myself. As I wrote prose, from time to time, and published here and there, I also imagined theater. It's true that during my student years I formed a fairly solid culture of cinema (at the Cinematheque) and theater (at Bulandra, at Teatrul Mic, at Nottara, etc.). I had actually played something, as a student... Literary imagination was my nocturnal "drama." The day-night alternation saved me many times from anguish, from their cave. When the Drama contest came out, I already had a few sketches. I continued one. And it takes me

Chronicles:

"Ionel Bușe wrote a piece that reminds me of Plato's dialogues, placing himself on one side and the other of contemporary attitudes towards one subject or another. Because from the central theme of euthanasia, many others are derived that heat up the Romanian society today. In fact, we are dealing with a reflection of the discourses facilitated by the mass media and, for some time now, by social networks. The characters are grouped into 'modernists' and 'conservatives' and face each other less or not in a real debate than in a cavalcade of the deaf. They rather throw out the ideas they believe in or the prejudices that animate them than look for the meanings to which they can all come together. Hence the scenographic construction of Vlad Drăgulescu, the one who also took on the direction. The author invokes, outside the text, a reference to the Last Supper, but here the table of that dinner is broken into two segments placed obliquely to the axis that crosses the stage from its depth towards the viewer. In a way, a kind of mirror image is created of some of the other characters: the conservative ones to the viewer's left, the progressive ones to his right. At the head of the sharp angle that is born is placed a 'stone' which, in fact, is neither philosophical nor religious (in this case Christian): there we have the absence and then the presence of the one who caused the story, the Old Man who wants to be euthanized . And he represents, in essence, our essence, the humanity in us, the flesh and soul that governs us. A rather reduced stage presence role but very well played by Eugen Titu. With depth, with restrained but strongly significant, visible gestures."

At the head of the angle, by Marius Dobrin, SpectActor, no. 3/2018