class="">Ionuţ Caras: „Laughter is the best way to slap Hitler into the face!”

October 24^th

In this interview for fnt.ro, actor Ionuţ Caras tells the story of the character that inhabits him when he performs “Mein Kampf”, a performance directed by Alexandru Dabija, and produced by the “Lucian Blaga” National Theatre in Cluj- Napoca, part of this year’s festival selection. How he threw himself into reading and how he came from his hometown, Iassy, to Cluj- Napoca is just another story. The performance successfully opened the National Theatre Festival 2015.

An interview by Florina Tecuceanu

How would you describe Schlomo Herzl, the character you play in “Mein Kampf”?

Ionuţ Caras: My character has been slightly modified, by the intervention of Cătălin Ştefănescu, who wrote the stage version of the text. All the discussion takes place between Schlomo and one of his friends. Alexandru Dabija somehow fragmented and multi- faceted this character. He’s a Jew selling books and living in a deserted Turkish bath.

He takes up a tenant, young Hitler, who has come to study in Vienna and will rapidly grow into being an influence upon him. I am very attached to this part, it’s not an easy one- first of all, there is this difficulty of the stereotypes, the classical image we have of the Jew– we also find it in Romanian dramatic literature. So this was the first step to take, annulling these preconceptions. It so happened that this part “fits” me very well, I’m a great fan of Jewish literature, of their literature with a touch of humor.

I had read texts by Shalom Alehem and Isaac Bashevis Singer. I like their irony, their intelligence, the spirit and this weird capacity of always joking about things, of laughing about their own problems. On the other hand…being on stage for three hours…that’s very hard!

What about facing Hitler- isn’t that a hard thing to do?

Confronting Hitler and Sorin (Leoveanu, n.r. the actor who plays Hitler) is extremely difficult! His character, Hitler and Schlomo are counterpointed. I have the impression they are two sides of the coin- that might be a too daring point of view. It’s hard to face Sorin, who is a very talented actor. This is not our first collaboration; we did “The Cherry Orchard” together a while ago, under Roberto Bacci’s direction.

I think we do function very well together and we do “color” our characters quite beautifully. There was this other challenge, of being there and looking, simply looking at the stage. My intention was to create a three- dimensional character, not just a shape that moves from here to there, lifeless, soulless, one you can’t picture in your head after the end of the show. I tried to capture Shlomo from several angles- both on the vertical and on the horizontal, I tried to open myself to being “inhabited” by him. And Sandu works in a very relaxed and friendly way, it would have been a pity not to do that!

You used this term of / “being inhabited” / in psychiatry this is attributed to schizoid personalities! 

In a way, there is no actor who hasn’t got a little bit of schizophrenia in him! Posing with conviction is a sign of an actors “schizophrenia”, but not in a pathological way. When I met Schlomo, I felt I was standing face to face with a character I was waiting for, and I spoke to him beautifully and peacefully. I communicated well with him- in this respect, I think we “inhabited” each other. We did fit well into each other and I enjoy playing him, although its’ hard, dense, it’s an effort!

How can you free yourself of him, at the end of the show?

It’s not really like that. It’s a part. You are not taken into possession! Still, I don’t believe in actors who finish the show and feel nothing, any consequences on themselves. If you deliver yourself, first of all to the text- because this is the main engine, the text, if you give yourself totally, you can’t be fresh  when you get out of the stage, as if you’d been drinking a brandy. It’s true, good acting costs, after the show one might spend two hours in silence, not knowing what to say.

People ask if you’re ok and you say “yes”, but they don’t seem to believe you and you ask “why is that?”…“why are you silent?”…”excuse me, but I’ve been talking for three hours on stage, I can’t just talk whatever nonsense!” From this point of view, I do believe there is this transformation of the actors after the performance. I, for example, can’t speak, can’t move the same way. I look at things differently. It’s clear that I look differently. As Andrei Şerban said, there is a different quality of attention, it is getting better. 

How would you formulate an invite to “Mein Kampf”, for those who want to see the performance in Cluj?

Nazism is still a thistly topic. We see documentaries about Nazis on all media channels. I would invite people to see how a Jewish writer, Tabori, one who lost his entire family in concentration camps manages to see this tragedy of mankind with a comedic eye and to offer us a ludic prospective. Because it’s very good to laugh at these serious things. I don’t think Hitler could have been better slapped into his face than with laughter!

You are also part of another performance in the festival program, “Ubu Slammer!” What do you play there?

My character’s name is Brother Tibergiu. One of the Ubu’s footlickers.

You have a very impressive CV. You’ve been working with important directors- Alexandru Dabija, Mihai Măniuţiu, Silviu Purcărete, Andrei Şerban, Radu Afrim, Tompa Gábor / you’ve been awarded many times…

I guess I was lucky.

Is that just luck? Can a CV be the result of luck only?

An actor from Iassy told me once that one makes his luck. You can’t simply sit and wait. I worked. I liked it and I dedicated a lot of time to reading, to acting, to thinking. I think things somehow connected. When I speak of luck, I remember the following moment. I was in my third or fourth year of studies and Mr. Victor Rebengiuc was here, in Cluj, playing in Dabija’s “The Colonel and the Birds”. And when he saw me, he said: ”Look, this guy is good, you should hire him here, at the theatre!”

So was Mr. Rebengiuc’s recommendation that made them hire you?

Yes! They knew I was good, but they needed…

…Luck  was needed!

Then I crossed paths with Dabija, with Tompa, Şerban, Afrim, and more recently, Purcărete. With  Afrim, for example, I was still a third year student, we met and he said : “I don’t know you, you’ve been recommended. Come, impress me, you’ve got five seconds!” And I managed to impress him.

You were born in Iassy, but you studied acting in Cluj. Why Cluj?

I was preparing for Târgu Mureş, but I came to Cluj because I was scared I won’t make it. Cluj had the earliest exam dates and I thought I’d go to try somewhere else if they don’t accept me. But they did. I stayed and I was lucky to meet Miklós Bács, my first acting teacher. And I stayed in Cluj.

When you were a child, were there any signals you’d become an actor?

Signs were contradictory. I was stumbling over the microphones when we had our school performances, I got a completely red face and started crying. Then I started reading. I learned how to read when I was five. I read a lot and memorized very easily. I remember I knew the book “Memories from Childhood” by heart. I could tell the entire story, every single word of it. I was on the veranda at my grandparents’ house in the countryside and they asked me to tell them the “story of the cherries”. I read a lot and then I was fantasizing a lot. My sister was born when I was eight. Until then, I had been alone with my parents, so, not having anyone to play with, I used to read, to imagine characters, to invent stories. I imagined voices; I imagined what if I was Winnetou! In high school I was part of the theatre group and in the final two years I started being very serious about going to drama school.

Had you already decided, in your final high school year?

Yes, I had decided, but I told my parents I was going to study philosophy, then psychology, then journalism…and then, when I told them I was going to drama school, and that I was going to Cluj, above all!…

You were reading a lot and memorizing easily…What books marked your childhood and adolescence? What about the present?

I read all adventure books as a child, mystery, fantastic literature…then Dostoyevsky, Eliade, Cioran, Kafka, as a high schooler. It was highly fashionable to have a Cioran under your pillow. Then I moved on to Marques, South- American literature, magical realism.

Yesterday, for example, I read a book by Dan Perjovschi. I’ve been reading theatre books lately, for the school, for my PhD. Not long ago I read an anthology of horror and fantasy literature, that I liked a lot. All sorts of awarded short stories. And I read a book about emotions. I’m not very systematic, when it comes to what I read.

Do you feel this temptation to mentally dramatize the literary works you are reading? Texts like those of Salinger, where dialogue is predominant, do you imagine them as theatre plays?

Sure! A book well written automatically gets into a dramatized form. And yes, we did “The Catcher in the Rye” with the students!

How do you see your students- do they have a vocation, is there a calling, or do you have to persuade them?

They have to be persuaded. You have to fight them. We weren’t like that- we were more determined. If you wanted to do something, ok, if not, ok again. This generation is more difficult to please and they do quite lack passion.

Photo credit: clujulcultural.ro

October 24^th 2015