class="">A debate about school, religion and society- RELIGION TEACHER, directed by Bobi Pricop

We invite you to watch the recording of the performance RELIGION TEACHER, by Mihaela Michailov, directed by Bobi Pricop, a production of the „Marin Sorescu” National Theatre Craiova, filmed during the 2014 National Theatre Festival, as part of the festival’s partnership with the Romanian Television. Tonight, August 9^th, at 20.10  on TVR 2 and TVR HD.

Never far from her sources, Mihaela Michailov believes theatre is inspired by and  involved in social aspects. She believes in play writing as an instrument in documenting and deciphering the more or less faulty mechanisms of the functioning of a society. „We don’t only document what happened, but also what could have happened. Or what couldn’t have taken place. It’s a possibility, it’s a predictability, it’s palpable present and post- quotidian. It’s the fulfillment or failure of dreams. It’s the reconstruction of conflicting, complementary, convergent, true or fictitious personal or community stories. It’s recent history check and abandonment and a move towards untold life stories, untold to power, to the power that writes the convenient version of the system narration. It’s reality and fictionalizing of a reality turned fragile in time. It’s an encounter with the past seen from the point of view of the present and launching interrogations onto the future”, so Mihaela Michailov in an article written for the magazine  „Dilema Veche” about „Under Ground”, a performance about the mines in Valea Jiului, suggestively named: „How to use reality”. (Dilema veche, nr. 576, February 26^th / March 4^th 2015)

“Religion Teacher”, a text based on a fragment that won the 3^rd edition of the contest for young Romanian playwrights and directors launched by the „Marin Sorescu“ National Theatre, Craiova, takes the same perspective again. Our undertaking was continued by the director Bobi Pricop and the ensemble of the theatre in Craiova. I started working with Bobi Pricop and we were interested in choosing a theme from the realities in schools”, says Michailov about the genesis of the text in an exclusive interview for the Production Department of TVR.

„ We investigated several topics that lead us to this reality- that of the way in which religion is taught in school, a discourse that draws upon dichotomies, clichés. We have asked ourselves how we could put this in a dramatic form, to write a play that would reflect the way in which religion is being taught in school, the schoolbook rhetoric concerning religion.”

„We followed two levels, two different realities. On one hand, the story of a girl accusing her professor of having touched her, generating a debate about caress. On the other hand, the approach to teaching religion in schools starting from the question: “what is the truth?” We have started at these two types of truth: the truth told at home, at school, inside a family vs. the child’s truth, a piece of the intimate truths of each child imagining reality in his own, personal way. We juggle with these two tracks: the taught truth – most of the time authoritarian- and unilateral and the intimate, profoundly subjective truth of each child.”

This dual approach is taken a step further through our choice to cast the same actor to play several characters. „We thought it was important to not strictly link the actor to the character. We thought that the spectator would be able to take distance when seeing one actor playing several parts.”

We invite to a TV theatre night on Monday, August 12^th, the International Day of the Youth: “Religion Teacher”, a story about truths and fictions, about religion and school, about mass- media and childhood.

„Religion Teacher ”: Monday, August 10^th, 20:10, on TVR 2 and TVR HD; followed by a replay on Tuesday, August 11^th, 14:00 on TVR HD

RELIGION THEACHER by Mihaela Michailov

A production of the “Marin Sorescu” National Theatre, Craiova

Director and set designer: Bobi Pricop

Cast: Marian Politic, Dragoş Măceşanu, Romaniţa Ionescu, Cătălin Vieru, Raluca Păun

TVR Team:

production: Cezarina Hărăbor, video editor: Marius Rusitoru, DOP: Vlad Tănase, musical director: Gabriel ScÎrlet, TV Director: Gini Ignat, producer: SÎnziana Miloşoiu

Television theatre is a project coordinated by CASA DE PRODUCŢIE TVR, aired every Monday evening on TVR 2. This week also on TVR HD.

August 9^th 2015