class="">Vertigo

I am trying to tell a story about something that can’t really be told. Or at least I can’t. This is what I thought a few months ago. That it can’t be told. But things have been said and written about illness and suffering and about unraveling of the soul.

An article published byMarina Constantinescu in România Literară magazine Nr: 33 (14/08/2015 – 20/08/2015)

In so many ways. I will also write something about a performance that is a confession. About a way of exorcising pain. And solitude. A whisper, a cry about love and about identity loss. A performance about Alzheimer and an intimate, direct and personal experience.

There is a theatre in Turda. I think it’s a magical space because theatre director Aureliu Manea settled and worked there. Genius and illness have coexisted there and performances that were true encounters were born. The building of the theatre stands across the street from the church, on the other side of a small classical square, at the beginning of the pedestrian area. I looked for the little plate with Aureliu Manea’s name on it. The theatre was named after him- a strong and moving recognition. There is an exhibition about Manea in one of the foyers of the theatre. Photographs of his, from different moments of age and condition, pictures of actors- some I recognize, others I don’t. We don’t fight too hard against oblivion. The memory of theatre vanishes together with us. There are less and less documents about what used to be in a theatre or another. If sometimes we still find pictures, costumes, brochures, it only happens because of the few passionate people here and there. They are the keepers of the archives of memory. We do forget, even when we’re not touched by Alzheimer. We do forget because of indifference and ignorance. Because of lack of love. We play with oblivion because we can control it. Because there is a way back. Because we aren’t prey to the pathological. Because non- oblivion, memory, can bring us back.

How can you live without memory? I asked myself this question a while ago, when I found out about Cioran’s illness. And after having seen the film „Iris”. About Iris Murdoch and Alzheimer. Heart wrenching. I was silenced when confronted with a sufferance that was completely new to me. And extremely strange. Eating up the brain, slowly. Feeding itself on it. On memory. Maybe the greatest treasure. A lavish nourishment.

„did you sleep well? I ask her
yes / my mother says 
do you feel pain? 
no / my mother says 
are you peaceful at night? 
no / my mother says .”

I saw a performance about love, memory and Alzheimer in Turda. It starts abruptly with the dialogue above. A performance that haunts me. I take it with me everywhere not just because it’s different. Probably because of fear. I may feel that the confession of its creator can protect me from the disease. Vertigo. Director Mihai Măniuţiu exorcises a great pain. Paralyzing. His mother has Alzheimer. The notes on which this performance is based are simple, linear, extremely poetic and completely deprived of pathos. And therefore even tougher. They hit in the stomach. Words and non-words hurt. Marcel Iureş reads them in blank tone. In fact, just a few phrases, melting in word and dance…One hour. A paralyzing tone of the confession.  Of frailness. I can hear Marcel’s recorded voice. Sometimes. It hurts. Detachmentinvolvement. Power- frailty. Mihai adores his Mother. He always gravitated around her and she always remained a fundamental axis to him. He used to go to visit every day. He still does, he visits her at the hospital, although she doesn’t recognize him. Every day. She has always been gentle and warmhearted. This is how I remember her. Always there for the others, for her sons. I retrieve memories erring around inside my mind.

My paternal grandmother. And her illness. I still ask myself if she had Alzheimer. I don’t know if what she had back then had been given a name. It was in the 80s. She was losing herself and losing us, under our scared adolescent eyes. She had moments when she didn’t know who she was. And she almost never knew who we were. The room we were in suddenly turned into a classroom. She held fantastic lectures in impeccable French. At the beginning, my brother and I laughed. Like imbeciles. “She lost her mind”, we whispered. She’s crazy, that is. My grandmother had always been different. And too lazy to decipher this difference, we were simply and ignorantly saying she was crazy. That’s why the drifting of her illness was naturally circumscribed to the pre-established trajectory. She did not lose her mind, but her memory. Our idiotic laughter became silence. Perplexity. The outline of the present was fading away, into a distant past, unknown to us. Other characters, another type of discourse, other hints. And our bewilderment.

„I’d wish to be able to say good bye to her

I’d wish to be able to say good bye to her

I don’t want anything but to learn

How I could say good bye to her.

To say good bye.

From her, who doesn’t know any longer who I am

I’d wish to be able to say good bye to her

To say good bye.

To tell her how much I love her

And to learn to say good bye.

Mihai Măniuţiu. Vertigo.

Two bodies. Two hypostasis. Two dancers and choreographers. Vava Ştefănescu and Andrea Gavriliu. I follow them holding my breath. The young, energetic body, the fragile, hesitating body. The virile body, the exhausted body. Vitality, weariness. Devitalisation of the body, loss of self-consciousness. Their dance is painful. Like the other’s illness. Like Mihai Măniuţiu’s confession. Can exorcising function in this case? Maybe yes. Not healing. Just freeing. Maybe it could relegate fear. But not confusion. The two female dancers try to follow each other’s duality, to mirror each other, to share their memories, sensations, perceptions with each other by means of another kind of language. Beyond the supporting word, the supporting images, there is dance. Unreal shapes of bodies commenting on joy and frailness, all the same. Lights and shadows. Breakage. Ghostly existence. Day? Night? Life? Vava Ştefănescu and Andrea Gavriliu have the force of “yesterday” in the infinite movement of their hands. The force of “once”, as in a fairy-tale. She once was the strong and charming woman. Now she is moody and unsettled. Where is she? And the bodies convulse to remember their lives, in non-oblivion.

„ my yellowish hand is a dead butterfly
still writhing and flying-
(my mother says with difficulty)
take care there are many of these things
fluttering… pullulating
but long dead
your hand is a miracle/ I say
are other miracles alike? 
she asks
and I don’t know what to answer.”

The „ Aureliu Manea” Theatre, Turda: Vertigo written and directed by Mihai Măniuţiu. Set design: Adrian Damian. Choreography: Vava Ştefănescu and Andrea Gavriliu. Original and remixed music: Şerban Uraschi. Light design: Lucian Moga. Videos: Cristian Pascariu. Cast: Vava Ştefănescu, Andrea Gavriliu and Flavia Giurgiu, Alexandra Duşa, Bianca Pintea. Voice: Marcel Iureş.

The performance will be presented during the National Theatre Festival (October 23^rd / November 1^st). More details here.

September 30^th 2015