class="">Teodor Corban –confessions. When the profession has something to gain

Teodor  Corban, a prodigious Romanian theatre and film actor, plays  in Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s  „The Visit” directed by` Claudiu Goga, a production of the National Theatre in Iaşi , invited for the NTF. With his well known kindness, he confessed to us speaking about this part and about his profession and his belief in it.

Interview by Maria Sârbu

Maria Sârbu: You are the protgonist of „The Visit”. It seems it is a  very good part for you. Was it difficult to create your character? Did it leave its marks upon you?

Teodor Corban: The character of Ill charmed me from the first moment. I think Claudiu Goga has come to Iaşi  extremely well prepared, with a text version and a restructuring of the play, clearing a lot of the initial thickness of the text. The fact that Ill was being brought to the forefront made it very clear to me that the stakes put onto my shoulders were high and also made me very happy- for an actor it’ s a great joy to be offered such a complex, rich, spectacular part. Practically, I was to invest in Ill all I knew, professionally; the character had to traverse all the feelings one can have in a lifetime: pride, ignorance, poltroonery, cynicism, innocence, tragic, oblivion. It’s, at the same time, a tragic, monumental, decadent character. A rare challenge.

How much did Claudiu Goga, with whom you worked in Iaşi , manage to be of help in this respect?

Claudiu Goga is providential to the National Theatre Iaşi . I played in all of the five plays he staged here and I have to say, in all honesty, that he, of all directors, is the one who has understood and educated the ensemble. He is a fine connoisseur of the actor and what he did was a sort of recycling, he lent a different professional character to the team. This collaboration was magic.

What does the most impress in this performance?

 I find it monumental, as is the text. It has greatness and tragedy, like in antique theatre, it has black and savory humor, as no other author offers, it’s modern and it refers us directly to actuality. And, as I see it, all this is worked through with the punctiliousness of a Chinese standing on his knees and transcribing the Bible on a rice grain

How was the performance received by the audiences? You also performed outside your home town…

We have had a number of presentations in Iaşi and in Kishinev, all were treated as special events. Many spectators confessed that this is maybe the best performance we had in Iaşi  in the last 25 years. In Kishinev we had an auditorium packed with actors and directors, they all seemed quite bewildered at the end. And so was I since they weren’t ordinary spectators, most of them were people who had graduated from the most famous theatre schools in Moskow.

How would you lure the Bucharest audiences to come see „The Visit”?

I don’t know how that Bucharest audiences should be tempted, but there are a few features that recommend it. Dürrenmatt’s text, first of all, then the names of Claudiu Goga and of Mihaela Arsenescu Werner (actress awarded by UNITER) and, of course, the fact that the performance has been selected in this prestigious festival. And, why not, maybe people would be curious to see me on stage, after having seen me in film.

You’ve been with the National Theatre in Iaşi   for over 25 years and you played numerous parts. Could you name a few that influenced your artistic destiny?

Now, after so many years, it seems hard to me to tell which parts left the most powerful marks on me, which of them most influenced my career. I worked a lot for each, I gave myself to all, to those in which I was successful as to those I failed in. Looking back, I find a few that were fortunate to gain a lot of appreciation from critics and audiences: Gogu in Teodor Mazilu’s „Proştii sub clar de lună”, Şarikov in „Heart of a Dog”, Chiriţa in „Chiriţa În provincie”, Jean in „Rinoceros”, Biedermann in „Biedermann and the Firebugs” or Lopahin in „The Cherry Orchard”.

You work a lot in film; you had important parts in feature films that brought you international recognition „One Floor Below”, „Aferim!” or „12.08 East of Bucharest”. How do you, like all actors who are being absorbed by them, combine these two totally different arts?

I do not make this clear separation between theatre and film acting. Maybe it’s because I studied theatre acting and because I come from the theatre. I’ve been formed as an actor through the method of Stanislavski. The difference between film and theatre stages is created by the specific conditions of each of them. The more subtle and rapid means of expression, the faster reactions and concentration you manipulate when acting in film. Now, since you asked me this…I seem not to find any differences between these two ways of acting. There is something very interesting going on: I have started using film means on stage lately and my theatre parts became more appreciated. It is clear to me that, in its essence, the art of acting is just one.

How do you work with film directors who are not familiar to theatre? How do you detach from the stage and step onto the film set?

The process of working on the character under the guidance of the film or theatre director is mainly the same. There are differences of approach, depending on the personalities of each one. Most of them respect my formation as an ambivalent actor, still they sometimes tease me saying: “Hello, don’t do that so boldly, you’re not on a theatre stage here” or “Your reaction is good, but it’s too fine, one can’t even notice, this is not a screen here”.

What is your reaction when you learn about success, for example when you find out you will receive an award? To what extent do awards or other joyful professional recognitions influence you?

Success and awards are good if they do not become a purpose per se. When you receive an award, you get the confirmation that you are on the correct path; it’s validation from the others. It’s not a problem if you do not collect diplomas, the problem is that you fumble about, lonely, on a career path of which you are unsure whether it’s a correct one or not.

What is Teo Corban’s life, beyond stage and screen?

Until a while ago, my life was nothing else but theatre. It seemed right to me, it seemed that this would mean being an actor, that I have to speak, to play all the time, that I have to breathe theatre to feed myself with theatre. Like a sort of a rush, this eagerness of mine. I guess I was contaminated by the verbalism I heard around, that this is the only way to do “real art”… Then I got sick, there came a moment in life when I was shown, through this not even chronic illness, that  everything is relative, that years of my life had passed and I had refrained from too many things in favor of my profession. And, incredibly, the profession had to gain from this change!

October 20^th 2015