class="">Cristi Juncu: „In theatre, like in politics, one isn’t allowed to publicly share his regrets…”

October 22^nd 2015

The director replies with irony or- not so often- with self irony to the questions connected to the National Theatre Festival: his conception about art and playwriting, working with actors and about the  future. The result? A rough, not to be missed interview.

By Andrei Crăciun

25 years of NTF. A quater of a century. How did you look at this quarter of a century?

I never managed to “look” at something as big as a “quarter of a century”. I looked at smaller bits: hours, days, maybe even weeks. When the field of observation becomes wider than that, I turn myopic: everything seems foggy, absurd, chaotic. To cut it short, I lack vision!

How do you find this year’s selection? Are there any performances you think should be part of the festival and are not? And the other way round?

In this last year I’ve seen (alarmingly) few performances. I’m not trying to avoid an answer, I simply don’t know.

Two of your shows were selected this year: “Tit for Tat”,  that you staged in TÎrgu Mureș and “Lonesome West” at the Nottara Theatre. What have these performances meant to you? 

Two more stories worth telling.

Were you particularly impressed with any of the actors in these two shows?

You want me to offer the Best Actor Award in my shows? No. I don’t want to influence the UNITER jury.

You are the first director Florin Piersic Jr. worked with in the past 15 years- he directed his shows himself in this last time. Was it difficult to work with him?

Florin and I had a constant, long term flirt”. We watched and appreciated each other’s performances (“Sex, Drugs & Rock’n’roll” is, in my opinion, a benchmark in Romanian spectacology- Florin should have been awarded not only as best actor, but also as best director for that!) and we both waited for a moment when we would meet. I was fearful in the beginning (so was he, I read in his interviews), because his long absence from the landscape of available actors created all sorts of myths: that he’s grumpy, that he thinks of himself as too great a director to ever listen to some direction given, that he unexpectedly leaves…Nothing happened of all this. I discovered an attentive, curious, generous actor, mastering his means of expression, ready to take risks, to explore less “safe” areas, an artist for whom, as for me, the road is more important than the destination (meaning that the performance is just a justification of the rehearsals), to cut it short, a wonderful collaborator- both for me and for his partners on stage. I’d like to add something: even though I’m flattered by the presumption hidden behind the question- that I might be I don’t know what wizard who managed to bring the famous untamable rebel back to order- I think that Florin’s come back to the status of a “normal” actor (one who takes confidence in a look from outside) were determined by the team and the text. What makes me happy is that we do not feel exhausted by one another, that it was not an “all out” encounter, we both wish to work together again. So, no, it wasn’t difficult to work with him.

CRISTI JUNCU DID ONE PERFORMANCE IN 2015. AND HE FEELS EXHAUSTED

I read in an interview that you define yourself as lazy, but that you are well aware of the fact that a lazy man has to work twice as hard, to compensate for remorse. How lazy are you, in fact? How much do you work?
Four- five performances a year. This year, because of one theatre that did nor respect its programming, everything is being put on jeopardy and so far I’ve only done one. And I feel drained…

Are you satisfied with your work over the past years? Do you have any regrets connected to the performances you staged?

In theatre, as in politics, one isn’t allowed to publically share his regrets…I will only mention one: that we are not any more performing “Illusions” (a production of  Act Theatre). I did that without any money at all, we paid the rights from revenues after the first and second presentations. There were critics to say very bad things about it, still I loved it.

At the same time, you define yourself as “a bourgeois” and a “man who tries to lead a comfortable life”. Do you manage to comfortably live as a theatre director in nowadays Romania?

As I understand the term of «comfortable », yes. But I know people who would be horrified by what I call comfort.

How did you become a theatre director?

Out of need. The school I was visiting, where I had signed up as a film student finally did not have the means- cinema is expensive (or used to be, now there are festivals of films done on mobile phones). Still, we could find a venue and a few actors.

You say a theatre director is a story teller. Is this your idea from the very beginning or a conclusion you reached by accumulating experience?

I think I loved stories “from the very beginning”. The first books I have read were those in the “Immortal Stories” series- like many other kids. There were just a few of these volumes at home and my school didn’t have a library. In my second school year I had a colleague (I can only remember his forename: Vlad) who happened to be the grand- grandson of Petre Dulfu (search on Wikipedia!), and in his house (now demolished) there was a real treasure for someone like me…I was in love with stories. I don’t know if this is a real memory, but I think we were competing against each other: who reads more of them? I have tears in my eyes- I can’t’ remember since when I haven’t been thinking about these years. I’m old, I speak of Petre Dulfu when narrativity has become an obsolete concept.

Have you got any models among Romanian theatre directors? Who would they be?

Dabija. Since we’re talking about stories.

You have a preference for contemporary playwriting. Where does it come from?
I don’t know if I should call it a preference for contemporary playwriting, but I surely have an appetence for it. What I don’t understand is why I have to explain this. The theatre I make (and that still a majority of my colleagues are doing) has its starting point in text. There are people on this earth who do this: they write texts meant to be staged. Some do it better, some do it worse. Some do it exceptionally! How can you take these people out of the equation? In 1600, Shakespeare wrote contemporary drama!

How many plays have you read this year, so far? 
121.

October 22^nd 2015