Exploring theater practices in communist and post-communist Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria, this book analyzes intertextuality or "inter-theatricality" as a political strategy, designed to criticize contemporary political conditions while at the same time trying to circumvent censorship. Plays by Romanian, Hungarian and Bulgarian dramatists are examined, who are "retrofitting" the past by adapting the political crimes and horrifying tactics of totalitarianism to the classical theatre (with Shakespeare a favorite) to reveal the region's traumatic history. By the sustained analysis of the aesthet
TARAMATRDİZİN ; Contextual social, political, and cultural developments have a substantial impact on political drama. These events have a potential to function as inspirational sources for playwrights in terms of subject matter. Dramatist Caryl Churchill draws on social and political developments, merging reality with fictional scenarios. Churchill makes use of the 1989 Romanian Revolution in her play, Mad Forest (1990), a concrete example of how Churchill incorporates the historical reality into her literary legacy. In her discussion, she also draws on Bertolt Brecht's epic theatre and numerous Brechtian techniques such as the concept of alienation effect by means of music, songs, and dance, and surreal elements like vampire and angel, episodic structure, multiple casting, and open-endedness. Through specific references to the play and relevant secondary sources, this study will, therefore, discuss the 1989 Romanian Revolution as portrayed in the play by highlighting the epic theatre elements used in Mad Forest, and demonstrate how it does not become clear to certain characters in the play whether the revolution has really taken place or not. Through this discussion, this article will also indicate people's liability to manifest different attitudes and approaches under the influence of suppression, as a new discourse is reconstructed after the deconstruction of the initially adopted discourse. This analysis will ultimately expose the transitory nature of a specific paradigm within a specific period, the plurality of perspectives, and different facets of truth rather than one fixed definition.
Abstract This article analyses the main drama translation strategies pertaining to the rendering of dialect and slang from English into Romanian with practical emphasis on "Pygmalion" (1914; 1941) by George Bernard Shaw. Moreover, it aims to review translation techniques and strategies which facilitate the translation of slang and dialect, more precisely Cockney, from English into Romanian. Amongst the strategies discussed here are: the application of a cultural filter and of local adaptation, the use of dialect compilation, pseudo-dialect translation, parallel dialect translation, dialect localization, and standardisation. The second half of this article scrutinises a selection of lines extracted from G. B. Shaw's "Pygmalion," comparing and contrasting the existing Romanian translations and suggesting new solutions to rendering culture-specific terms into Romanian.
This article discusses a 2018 theatrical production of Hamlet with Romanian teenage arts students, directed by one of the article's authors, actress and academic Dana Trifan Enache. As an artist, she believes that the art of theatre spectacle depends pre-eminently on the actors' enactment, and hones her students' acting skills and technique accordingly. The other voice in the article comes from an academic in a cognate discipline within the broad field of arts and humanities. As a feminist and medievalist, the latter has investigated the political underside of representations of the body in religious drama, amongst others. The analytic duo reflects as much the authors' different professional formation and academic interests as their asymmetrical positioning vis-à-vis the show as respectively the play's director and one of its spectators. Their shared occupational investment, teaching to form and hone highly specialized professional skills, and shared object of professional interest (broadly conceived), text interpretation, account nevertheless for the possibility of fruitful interdisciplinary reflection on the 2018 Hamlet. This in-depth analysis of the circumstances of the performance and technical solutions it sought challenges stereotyped dismissals of a students' Hamlet as superannuated, flimsy or gratuitously provocative. Furthermore, a gender-aware examination of the adaptation's original handling of characters and scenes indicates unexpected cross-cultural and diachronic commonalities between the dramatic world of the 2018 Romanian production of Hamlet and socio-cultural developments emergent in pre-Shakespearean England.
This article discusses a 2018 theatrical production of Hamlet with Romanian teenage arts students, directed by one of the article's authors, actress and academic Dana Trifan Enache. As an artist, she believes that the art of theatre spectacle depends pre-eminently on the actors' enactment, and hones her students' acting skills and technique accordingly. The other voice in the article comes from an academic in a cognate discipline within the broad field of arts and humanities. As a feminist and medievalist, the latter has investigated the political underside of representations of the body in religious drama, amongst others. The analytic duo reflects as much the authors' different professional formation and academic interests as their asymmetrical positioning vis-à-vis the show as respectively the play's director and one of its spectators. Their shared occupational investment, teaching to form and hone highly specialized professional skills, and shared object of professional interest (broadly conceived), text interpretation, account nevertheless for the possibility of fruitful interdisciplinary reflection on the 2018 Hamlet. This in-depth analysis of the circumstances of the performance and technical solutions it sought challenges stereotyped dismissals of a students' Hamlet as superannuated, flimsy or gratuitously provocative. Furthermore, a gender-aware examination of the adaptation's original handling of characters and scenes indicates unexpected cross-cultural and diachronic commonalities between the dramatic world of the 2018 Romanian production of Hamlet and socio-cultural developments emergent in pre-Shakespearean England.
"Romanian diplomat and scholar George Cristian Maior - currently serving as Romania's ambassador in Washington - recounts the thrilling tale of America's first spy drama - the legendary Frank Wisner's intelligence operations in Romania as World War II ended and the Cold War dawned. An Office of Strategic Services operative who later rose to become the Central Intelligence Agency's operations chief before his tragic suicide, Wisner's mission bestrode two worlds and witnessed profound changes that global politics have grappled with ever since."--Provided by publisher
The article addresses a topic unexplored so far. It highlights the intense propaganda made by the communist authorities in Dâmboviţa county during 1949-1950, at the beginning of the collectivization of agriculture. Propaganda took place in various ways: the role of political factors, cultural actions, the role of the press, the presentation of the "Soviet model" in agriculture, etc. It also reveals the coercive measures that were to be amplified in the following years (the blame of the "reactionaries" in media, the prosecution and even the arrest of some of them), and also some opposition actions to the collectivization of large categories of citizens. In fact, the article wants to highlight the drama of the villages in Dambovita county, as part of the drama of the Romanian rural world during 1949- 1950, when many of them rejected the collectivization and paid for their courage.
"The Word ""Progress"": Is There Life Beyond Death? Is There Life Beyond War? This article's purpose is to analyze as thoroughly as possible one of the most interesting dramas of the well-known French-Romanian dramatist Matei Vişniec. This work is based on some of the most horrible events that happened during and after the Yugoslavian wars and it narrates a global experience – on many semantic levels and utilizing hermeneutical instruments – throughout the story of a single family, making, in the process, stand out in a clearer way the rich relations between the living and the phantasmatic category of the "living-dead" that continues to communicate with the former. I've operated, to shed a light on those phenomena, an analysis based on some anthropological studies that take in exam the violence's dynamics, but also, of course, I've used many auxiliary studies published in Italy and France, that analyze more in detail the drama in question. But the peculiarity of my study is to apply some of the anthropological aspects of war and to collocate this work in the context in which it belongs, demonstrating also how the dramatist has done some thorough research before composing the drama. Keywords: drama, Yugoslavian wars, physical dispossession, "wild capitalism" "
Language has both a social and a cultural significance for a community of speakers. It inevitably undergoes constant changes in order to adapt to the requirements of a particular discursive practice (spoken or written communication, face-to-face or online communication, specialized language, etc.). In addition to this, language is externally influenced by the borrowing of loanwords. Focusing on anglicisms in Norwegian, this paper analyses the use of borrowings and of code-switching in the informal speech of teenagers as it is depicted in the Norwegian teen drama web series 'Skam'. The gradual acknowledgment of English as an international language paved the way in Norway for the acceptance of this foreign language in various domains, especially in the academia, as a tool for increasing exposure and for internationalization practices. Due to the constant exposure to English both in the academic environment and in informal settings, younger generations in Norway tend to engage more often in language mixing and regard this international language as an essential part of their daily lives. The findings of this paper concluded that in addition to the use of anglicisms, two types of code-switching – inter-sentential and intra-sentential code-switching) – were identified in episodes 9 and 10, season 4, of 'Skam'. In this line of thought, the use of anglicisms in 'Skam' and the code-switching performed are iconic for today's teenagers, as it testifies for the dominance of the western culture in their daily lives, and explains, at least partly, the wide success of this drama series.
Intro -- Contents -- Foreword -- Maps of Spain -- Introduction -- 1. The historical context of the Spanish Civil War -- 2. English narratives about Franco's Spain -- 3. Not quite king and country: Franco's English-speaking volunteers -- 4. Spectators at their own drama: Franco's French volunteers -- 5. Snow boots in sunny Spain: White Russians in Nationalist Spain -- 6. Slaying Satan, saving Franco: the Romanian Iron Guard in Nationalist Spain -- 7. With Flit and phonograph: Franco's foreign female supporters -- 8. Conclusions -- Select bibliography -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Y -- Z
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Written from a practice-as-research perspective, this thesis focuses on the use of testimony in creating material for the stage. Designed as a reflexive performance ethnography and action research study, the work is concerned with developing a new performative strategy to address the memory of pain in the aftermath of conflict and to contribute to rebuilding communities dispersed by social and political unrest. Informed by methodologies and performance practices involved with the curation of testimonial content and conceptually inspired by the work of theatre director Augusto Boal, anthropologist Victor Turner and psychiatrist Dori Laub, Memodrome, as I named my technique, resides within the field of Applied Drama. It is intended to facilitate the direct interaction between a testifier and an empathic witness while generating simultaneous narratives based on the memories of the participants and their synergetic experiences. By using testimonial performance to explore aspects of the exilic and diasporic experience of Romanians in the UK and by making reference to the political and social tensions in the aftermath of the 1989 anti-communist revolution, this research aims at contributing to the understanding of how the experience of pain can reshape the cultural behaviour of a community and address feelings of belonging. Memodrome: Incubator, Memodrome: Roots and Memodrome: Home, the three performances I have created for the purpose of this PhD research, are experimental laboratories based on the particular and various experiences of life impacted by coercive and oppressive political governance. Memodrome: Incubator presents the testimony of a Romanian refugee artist who escaped a 30 years sentence in a communist prison by fleeing to the UK. Memodrome: Home explores testimonies of four Romanian migrants in the UK while Memodrome: Roots, constructed as a counter performance, captures the testimonies of six Romanians who are still based in their native country but reportedly feel that life under communism affected their feelings of belonging. The three case studies mentioned above constitute the foundation for developing a new performative strategy aimed at supporting communities affected by conflict to claim their past, commemorate painful experiences and celebrate survival. Examining the role of collective memory in the formation of public narratives, my proposal offers an alternative space where tensions can be negotiated through democratic means of spectatorship and collective authorship. This project demonstrates how capturing and performing personal testimonies can bring members of the community together and bridge differences. This work is structured in three main parts, each organised with several chapters and subchapters. In the first part of this thesis, I will provide a brief historical context and discuss how Romanian cultural behaviour has been reshaped in the shadows of the communist oppression. I will explore issues of identity in the aftermath of the anti-communist revolution in 1989 and argue that Romanians formed a new nation, one of people who lost their sense of place and belonging. I will also present my methodological approach articulating my affiliation with the practice of Applied Drama and explain how my academic and cultural background allowed me to engage with this work from a performative ethnographic perspective. In addition, in the first part of the written work, I will reflect on theoretical aspects with reference to memory, trauma, identity and nationhood and show how testimony can provide a powerful and restorative device in negotiating the tensions within communities affected by pain and oppression. In the second part of the research I will illustrate the conceptual framework of how I developed this new performative strategy to address the life of communities affected by painful pasts and to promote routines of reconciliation between its members by using testimony and performance. I will be reflecting on performativity, performance and the making of the self from an experiential perspective. Moreover, I will provide a theoretical framework to locate my practice alongside existing practices including Augusto Boals's Forum Theatre technique and his concept of simultaneous dramaturgy that has influenced my thinking and technical approach. I will be articulating performative aspects which inform my strategy and establishing in particular how participative performance, as an art of experience, can provide a valuable platform for democratic spectatorship and collaborative authorship. The present study is carried in the form of a practice-as-research PhD and therefore I will describe the process of creating three performances – Memodrome: Incubator, Memodrome: Home and Memodrome: Roots – and using them as investigation tools to design a new performative strategy I have called Memodrome. The third part of this work is concerned with the illustration of the practice and demonstrating how performance art, especially Applied Drama, is defined by the process rather than result. The three case studies that I will be presenting emphasise how performing testimony and the staging of oral histories can respond to questions of belonging and social interaction while driving the negotiation of identities in the public sphere. For example, Memodrome: Incubator – where I staged the story of Mariana Gordan, a Romanian exile living in Britain for the past thirty years and Memodrome: Home – where I staged the testimonies of four Romanian migrants living in London – can both be read as counter narratives to the story of Romanian migration in the UK. They all articulate frames of selfhood that have been only very rarely, if never, represented in the British mainstream public space with connection to the Romanian diaspora: the role of the artist, gender diversity, women activism, otherness versus togetherness. Likewise, Memodrome: Roots, produced in Romania, provides an insightful picture of the struggles concerning the identity of the Romanian self and the contrastive narratives of its cultural embodiment. I will conclude each case study with the learnings and reflections extracted from each performance and describe my decision making based on those findings. A relatively new way of engaging with both research and arts or producing new knowledge1, the practice-as-research model can yet pose some challenges and tensions within different academic frames. As a practitioner at core, my writing will be aiming at capturing the essence of the practice in the making, the process and the experience.
In my article, I examine the moments of gaps or pauses in improvisational scenes used in a Finnish language as a foreign language class. In my research I use different improvisational exercises and techniques (e.g. Johnstone 1981; 1999) when teaching Finnish as a second language. My pedagogical aim is to improve Finnish students' communicational skills in different kind of improvised settings. My research focuses on teaching Finnish as a foreign language in a Romanian university using improvisation theatre as a method in language teaching. I start from some values of Finnish educational system, such as equity, flexibility, creativity, teacher professionalism and trust (Sahlberg 2007). I compare how these values are conformed within an improvisational frame in a second language class. I present three examples from two different drama courses and I show through these examples how students contemplate with delicate, shameful and radical moments or pauses within their improvisational interaction in the classroom. My aim is to show how the teachers repeatedly accept the students' ideas based on the rules of improvisation (Johnstone 1981; 1999) and how this positive freedom of improvisation (Peters 2009) shows similarity with the values of the Finnish educational system.
Preliminary Material -- Tourism, Self-Representation and National Identity in Post-Socialist Hungary /Irén Annus -- Black Magic Women: On the Purported Use of Sorcery by Female Foreign Domestic Workers in Singapore /Audrey Verma -- Staying True to England: Representing Patriotism in Sixteenth-Century Drama /Helen Vella Bonavita -- How Australian Muslims Construct Western Fear of the Muslim Other /Lelia Green and Anne Aly -- Fatwa and Foreign Policy: New Models of Citizenship in an Emerging Age of Globalisation /Ron Geaves -- Choosing to Be a Stranger: Romanian Intellectuals in Exile /Oana Elena Strugaru -- Infinite Responsibility for the Other in Emmanuel Levinas and Anne Michaels' Fugitive Pieces /Joshua Getz -- The Breaking Asunder of Fanny Kemble: Trauma and the Discourse of Hygiene in Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838-1839 /Winter Werner -- Ancient Egypt as Europe's 'Intimate Stranger' /Kevin M. DeLapp -- Fictions of a Creole Nation: (Re)Presenting Portugal's Imperial Past /Elsa Peralta.
The paper combines the close reading technique of the novel Kranes konditori: Interiør med figurer (Krane's Café: An Interior with Figures, 1946), written by the classic Norwegian writer Cora Sandel (1880-1974) with a spatial approach which aims to present the past and the present of the novel's main character, Katinka Stordal. The action takes place in a small town situated in northern Norway, at Krane's Café. It is worth noting how topography, the seasons of the year, the Arctic climate and nature are gradually reflected in the novel. On the one hand, the novel is placed at the crossroads of a spatial perspective and the literary criticism, which has in its centre Krane's Café, the place where almost all the characters are brought together and which is the most suggestive and representative interior space of the novel. On the other hand, the subtitle An Interior with Figures strengthens the idea of a mixture of literary genres which includes elements from novel and drama. Moreover, it resembles the title of a work of art, for instance, a painting where all the characters are simply figures animated by the beauty of the Arctic scenery.
The present study describes the poetics of two contemporary multilingual writers, one born in Finland (Sabira Ståhlberg) and one in Bulgaria (Tzveta Sofronieva). Besides being prolific writers in literary genres such as poetry, prose, drama, both also translate and edit world literature. Early in their career each of them achieved a PhD. Sofronieva and Ståhlberg carry out academic activities through their research studies. After visiting a multitude of places, they have become not only literary figures of both their birth countries' literature and the literatures of several other countries, but real literary citizens of the 'new' world literature (McDougall, 2014). Their philosophical and ecological aestheticism voices the most urgent problems of humanity by incorporating the latest insights of brain studies, quantum physics, psychology, migration and cultural studies. Their oeuvre addresses any reader irrespective of language(s), background(s), and location(s). After looking into the monolingually multilingual (using hidden code-switching) as well as multigraphic and multilingual (using overt code switching) artistic production of Sofronieva and Ståhlberg, this study compares two poems, one by each of them, sharing the common metaphor of the sea horse. The aim of this comparative study is to point out how their highly topical poetries activate the multilinguality of any reader, as well as how the linguistic, alphabetic code-switching and shifts of interpretation paradigms loosen formal and conceptual borders. By their act, the reader is empowered to take part in not only piecing together but creating a better 'new' world.
