class="">Mihai Măniuţiu: “I am exploring the <>”

Mihai Măniuţiu brought a very lively musical at the Odeon Theatre of Bucharest, titled “Life’s more beautiful after you die”, a production of the “Tomcsa Sándor” Theatre of Odorheiu Secuiesc. The Manager of the Cluj-Napoca National Theatre tells us about the books he’s just written, about a troupe he brought to full potential and about his preoccupation with “metaphysical entertainment”.

An interview by Dan Boicea

You were part of the National Theatre Festival through a musican, a genre too underrepresented in the scenery of Romanian theatre, but one which you’ve made more and more popular, through your staging. As such, you brought “Life’s more beautiful after you die” to Bucharest, but the audience can see “Mister Swedenborg wants to dream” at the Iaşi National Theatre, “Fun” at the “Aureliu Manea” Theatre in Turda, “Don Quijote” at the Târgu-Mureş National Theatre, “Leonce and Lena at the “Queen Mary” Theatre in Oradea. Why all this increased interest in the musical lately?

I was present in the NTF with a sort of cabaret-theatre, based upon texts I’d written…and re-written, recombined especially for the actors of the Odorheiu Secuiesc troupe. My attraction for the substantial insertion of music in the theatrical performance hasn’t popped up yesterday, but it’s true that it’s gotten more and more acute lately.

Many years ago, I did “Electra”, after Sophocles and Euripides, with the Iza Group from Maramureş, seeking to find out the measure in which we could find actual forms for Hellenic musical tragedy. For two-three years, I’ve been exploring especially what I would call metaphysical entertainment. I don’t shy away from the entertaining aspect of theatre, so long as it doesn’t hinder the call for maximum performance.

And music is an ideal vehicle in the case of approaching difficult or sober themes. I will likely continue in this direction in the years to come, because this type of fertile search refreshes my appetite for work, being also given the chance to transform rehearsals in exercises of pleasure, of joy.

You clothe harsh realities in the sweet packaging of the musical. You thing it helps you deal with the pain more easily, when you look out the window and see, day after day, certain stages of degradation in Romania, about which you said it’s a “wild country, but one which I recognize and see myself in”.

Theatre, to me, is a sort of magical tunnel of the surreal in which I live more intensely that outside of it, in the train stations and the stops when I get out of the tunnel and go out to breathe the surface air. I always come back to the tunnel, however, to my tunnel, who has secret links to the Mediterranean, with the Greek islands, with the phantasmal territories of Hellenic tragedy.

“What do you need to be great? Only three things: Luck, luck and luck!”, you underline in an interview, practically doubling what Marcel Iureş said, that luck sits at the basis of work. What did this luck mean in your career, how would it be translated?

At the basis of work are talent, intuition, the genius of one’s craft, sacrifice and the capacity to gain satisfaction and joy from the huge efforts you make. Then comes the combo of “luck,luck,luck” ,which can bring a national, international or European resonance to the work of the actor, set designer or director. As far as I’m concerned, I’ve been fortunate enough to work from early on with theatre folk who helped me reach myself, who had the generosity to smoothen my path to the energetic core I charge from to this day.

“When I write, I must write as if I had fever. I must remove the virus that’s within me through writing”, you confessed. What is the virus of the moment, which you will remove with your next book title?

Just these last few days I’ve been doing the final proofreading on my two books that are set to be published by Charmides. One is a collection of poems, titled “Vertigo”, and one of prose, “The Frontier”. In march-april of 2015, I’ll porbably publish with a more ample collection with Humanitas, of the prose I’ve written in the past few years.Now I’m getting ready to take part in the NTF. If you spot me there, it means I’m well-off and I haven’t yet gotten the fever.

Do you feel that your published books ended up where they were meant to? Were they read/understood by the right people?

Nu, with the rare exceptions, no / and this is because of the faulty distribution, on the national scale, of Romanian fiction. There are endlessly more bookstores in which my books never entered, than those that hosted them.

You used to say that the actor is an enigma for you and that you don’t understand how he can be talented from 7 till 9 and how he can produce a poem on the spot, on stage, no matter the mood he’s in. Marcel Iureş was your first study specimen. Who, amongst the actors, do you study now and what are you looking for?

My amazement is still the same, even if I’ve written books about this and developed techniques, which I teach, as a professor, techniques of “luring”, of provoking inspiration. Marcel Iureş ,yes, he meant a lot to me, as did Gina Patrichi and Irina Petrescu and Marian Râlea and many others who allowed me to enter their intimacy and know the processes of the actor’s creation from within.

You’ve directed over 90 shows. What was left behind, what remained with you, what have the reading experiences, working with the actor, being in contact with the audience taught you?

The answer to this question you could probably find in my shows and my books. I only know that I am in the mood to keep writing and directing, if the gods allow it…

What has changed fundamentally at the Cluj National Theatre, since you’ve become manager there, and what has yet to appear?

What happened is that the troupe achieved heights of value which few thought could be achieved in such short a time. A week ago, for instance, director Alexandru Dabija publicly declared that, in his opinion , the TNCluj troupe is the best in the country. What didn’t happen… well, for instance, doubling the institution’s budget, so that I may lead it to where I dream it could go.#

You are a Distinguished Professor at the Drama Department of the Irvine University in California, USA and a prof. dr. of the Faculty for Theatre and Television of the Babeş-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca. What’s different in your approaches, as a professor, here and there?

In the country, I only teach directing, while I only teach acting in California. In the USA, the students’ discipline is exemplary and they’ve all decided to skin you alive. It’s fascinating and tiresome. Here, not rarely do we see an air of Balkan easy-going nature dominate the student-professor relationship.

An image of Romanian Theatre

How does Romanian theatre seem to you in 2014, seen through the filter of Marina Constantinescu’s selection for the NTF?

I don’t know the majority of the selected shows. In general, I’d say (taking a risk, since I haven’t a sufficiently exhaustive or ample vision) that Romanian theatre is quite diverse, somewhat dynamic (though not hyper-dynamic nor innovative) and that, unfortunately (not only of its own making) enjoying too little of an international opening.

As for the NTF, I believed (even when I haven’t been selected) that the rules of the game must be upheld. Since I thought the format of the Festival is based upon the central figure of the selection manager, our eventual “particular selections” serve no purpose.

I, for one, give full credit to Marina Constantinescu, who is a fine theatrical analyst and a solid human being, who never made and doesn’t make underhand games, but instead lets her intuition lead her on, her high culture and good taste, thanks to which she’s become the theatrical personality that she is.

Photo: Florin Biolan