Playboy

Adapted after The Playboy of the Western World , by J. M. Synge
Directed by Nona Ciobanu
Performed at The National Theatre Bucharest, 1997
Co-produced by the Toaca Foundation and The Academy of Theatre and Film Bucharest
National tour: Theatre Festival, Sibiu, Experimental Theatre Festival, Sf. Gheorghe

Cast : Bogdan Talasman, Damian Oancea, Ioana Flora, Andreea Bibiri, Crina Matei, Adrian Damian, Alin Panc, Cosmin Sofron, Antoaneta Zaharia, Simona Mihãescu, Serban Pavlu.
Set and Light Design: Iulian Bãltãtescu
Costumes: Dana Sipa
Music: Cristi Stefãnescu

Playboy, after J. M. Synge, is coherent, dynamic, clear cut and exceptionally performed. It is set in a fairy- tale universe, but its underlying structure remains perfectly cohesive. A multitude of imaginative and original become entangled with delicate, yet effective suggestions, so that the stage overflows with expression and playfulness. All in one hour and a half. The rhythm is fast and inexhaustible. The characters are reduced to their elementary, fundamental quality. Each of them wears a label, defining a psychological type. The story comes to life through a barrel, so does the show. They emerge, one by one, from a barrel- an “axis mundi” in its own right, eventually using it to build the set, which is never still, but constantly changing into tables, gates, chairs or bathtubs, etc. They are never separated from their barrels, as they use them to go out, to ascend or descend and sometimes to eavesdrop.

 

They love and hate passionately, make wicked plans and accordingly. Their world is base on very few signs, all drawing upon tradition. In this closed, opaquely traditional society, the stranger makes his appearance. He has committed a horrible crime, violently attempting to change their lifestyle. The only one who remains innocent is Pegeen, yet untouched by this moral disease. The conflicts are strong and varied, stimulating the character’s wildest instincts.
Romania Literarã - Marina Constantinescu

The barrel is the defining element of a ritual, this ritual being the world’s innermost engine. In Mayo, instead of Good evening they say Give me something to drink. These barrels are virtually inexhaustible reservoirs of raw matter for Nona Ciobanu’s symbolic construe.
Adevãrul - Ionela Litã

Through Nona Ciobanu’s magnifying lens, one can very clearly tell the difference between deceiving appearances and the essence of interpersonal relationships, between the characters ideal and actual status, between the feelings they express and the courses of action they take. Iulian Bãltãtescu comes back to a set that is both simple and multifunctional - the barrels which enhance the sense of derision. Ingeniously maneuvered, the barrels become a cornucopia, then a sample of rural architecture then the very essence of spiritually when a few superimposed barrels refer to Brancusi’s Endless Column.
Dreptatea Culturalã - Anca Rotescu

Nona Ciobanu’s performance proves a perfect understanding of the text, in its beauty and depth. Cristi Stefãnescu’s music is essential as a part of the atmosphere of the play, with its sometimes wild, sometimes tender tones, very harmoniously sung by the actors. Nona Ciobanu’s merit is to have brought all these art forms and talents together, achieving that sense of meaningful “convergence” which makes a good show.
Rampa - Alice Georgescu

As a rule, after they attain a certain reputation, our director content themselves with making shows. Especially if they are lucky enough to work in Bucharest. Although spoiled with prizes an scholarships, Nona Ciobanu detaches herself from this context. Together with Iulian Bãltãtescu she succeeded in setting up a cultural foundation and the Toaca Theatre as a part of it. Unlike many other foundations, this one is actually working. The Theatre had the opening of its second production at The National, Playboy, after J. M. Synge. The title can be somewhat disorientating, since we are only familiar to the contemporary connotations of the word playboy. Synge’s playboy is a young peasant enjoying a drink and recounting having killed his drunkard, tyrannical father. For Synge’s time, the gesture seemed to possess political undertones - a new Ireland killing her predecessor. Consequently, the crime of Chris Mahon elicits admiration. Women fight over him and he’s got luck on his side. Only until the-not-exactly-murdered-father reappears. This turns the tables - the young Mahon falls into disrepute. He then says he’s willing to do it again, this time more efficiently, to prove to the others that he deserved their admiration. But they find it unacceptable that they should watch what they had praised. There is a big difference between a ghastly story and a horrible deed, says young Pegeen.

Advancing on the line of this political interpretation we can draw the conclusion that the brand new, desirable world is separated from the ancient world-to-be-killed only by the actual world, the present and genuine one. Confronted with this, father and son discover the normality of their relationship, and ride away to tell the world about this bizarre village. Nona Ciobanu is in enthralled by the pathology of reality, of this world whose string are pulled by invisible, powerful demons. And we should acknowledge Nona Ciobanu’s exceptional results. All the details become refined suggestions, her sense of humor constantly avoids the grotesque at the risk of remaining unnoticed by a superficial spectator. Iulian Bãltãtescu’s set is minimal, multifunctional, and very much alive, as it were.
Libertatea- Victor Scoradet

Nona Ciobanu’s shows have the freshness of a story we already know, yet want to hear again, with the same curiosity and enchantment…This is an atavistic world, devoid of substance like an empty barrel. Nona Ciobanu teaches us a very bitter lesson, somewhat sweetened by the charmingly mythical atmosphere, by the ritualized processions, by the music and the set and also by Dana Sipa’s large hats and costumes, which bring a dream like colorful sense of fantasy and simultaneously refer to perennial criteria, this world bewilders us with its picturesque quality. Cave-man, jungle-man, or, more accurately, barrel-man, belonging both to the tiny village that feeds on gossip and brutality and to a cynically demented city, to a circus arena or to cartoons, the characters are the mock-tragic puppets of the end of this century and millennium, abandoned by God-the puppeteer.
Adevãrul- Saviana Stãnescu