Orgasm
produced by Toaca Cultural Foundation

By Vlad Zografi
Directed by Nona Ciobanu
Cast: Liliana Panã, Laurentia Barbu, Harry Tavitian
Music (live): Harry Tavitian
Costume & Light Design: Ana Olteanu
Choreography: Laurentia Barbu

Sponsor: Pro Helvetia Antena Bucharest

Orgasm has been presented for the first time at the “West Oestlicher Diwan” Festival, Halle (Germany), on 12th of May 2001, and in the National Theatre Festival (November 2001).

In a madhouse, instead of the usual treatment, the patients (Liliana Panã — actress, and Laurentia Barbu — dancer) receive their daily MUSIC. The doctor (Harry Tavitian), sometimes wizard, sometimes shaman, is playing his therapy at piano, flute, and exotic instruments. Can music cure the disease that touches all of us, more or less?

‘Around April 1999 the organizers of the Avignon Festival invited me to write an “essay” on a very European topic, something like “the relationship between theatre and society in today’s world”. I had to make sure I fitted my handling of the topic in no more than 80 lines, I think. 15 playwrights from all over the world were involved in this game; our output was to be read in an off section of the festival. It seemed to me that the sheer distance between my own field of interest and this type of debate — general and generous, running through the veins of all sorts of cultural projects

and pushing people into random traveling and talking — was overwhelmingly large, so I accepted the invitation. It exceeded the 80-line limit. This is how The Orgasm originated.
A woman is holding a mirror and putting on make-up. I shall not shout to anyone’s face that the woman represents theatre. The trouble is that her husband lost his sex drive. Once again, I shall not pester anyone into admitting that the man represents society. There is no effort this woman would spare to jolt her husband out of his sluggishness. I confess I have always wondered whether women put on make-up for their own pleasure or for the others’, or the other way around. I have questioned theatre along the same lines. But, as the character in the monologue says, You don’t have to wear make-up to masturbate. The story of the blind leading the blind is passed, and so is the realization that we are sick; what I find exciting is the anguished concern with some vague notion of welfare, as far as human kind, theatre and endangered species go. We have been spoken at length about the illness of society; however, we tend to overlook two conspicuous indications regarding its health: society masturbates and has a hearty appetite. Still, nothing can restrain our desire of advancement, especially since we live in society that makes colossal efforts to solve misstated and insoluble problems. If a man is ill, he has to be admitted into a hospital. Things become more difficult when it comes to society. Or perhaps to theatre.’
Vlad Zografi

Press Reviews

The show was essentially an invitation to freedom. The arts - theatre, music and dance, collaborated in bringing forth a deep-seated humanity, witch is usually confined behind the curtain of words of conventional theatre. In theatre, as in art in general, pluralism depends on the success of attempts such as this one of Nona Ciobanu, Vlad Zografi, Harry Tavitian, Liliana Panã, Laurentia Barbu and Ana Olteanu.
Nicolae Prelipceanu, Toaca - A Project for the 21st Century
(Romania Liberã - June 2001)

Directed by Nona Ciobanu, known not only to Romanian but also to European audiences, winner of several awards for shows produced in Romania, Germany and Malta, ' Orgasm ' premiered and received a standing ovation at the West Ostlicher Diwan Theatre Festival, in Halle, Germany. Against the set and light design of Ana Olteanu, two ' patients' - the actress Liliana Panã and the dancer and choreographer Laurentia Barbu, recount the history of their afflictions. The doctor, sometimes a medicine man, at other times a shaman, is a believer in music therapy, using the piano, the flute and exotic instruments to restore the patients back to health. Do not miss this acutely metaphoric and modern show at the Toaca Studio.
Victoria Anghelescu, Theatrical Metaphors
(Curentul - June 2001)

The finely tuned performance of the actors is enhanced by the fascinating music, the skillful lightning and, last but not least, the closed space, sealed off from the outside world: the psychiatric ward becomes a metaphor for the space of our everyday lives, where solutions can only be found together. With or without make-up or masturbation - the two images around which Zografi's theme is organised. Nona Ciobanu's achievement matches the challenge of the text: tension, high-pitched movement, a good balance between parts. Everything sets the tone for the question: What will become of us? Between a 'cuckoo's nest' and a 'concentration camp', private obsessions magnify into collective traumas. Especially in the 20th century, after Freud, Jung and Adler, but also after nazism and communism, oscillating between the freedoms affronted by the post-industrial society and the norms imposed by various religions, sexuality is an unavoidable topic. 'Orgasm' thematizes it as individual and collective obsession.
Florian Bãiculescu, In Intensive Care
(Observatorul cultural - Cultural Observer - June 2001)

After seeing 'Orgasm', based on a text by Vlad Zografi and directed by Nona Ciobanu, one of the most talented directors of the new generation, you feel like saying to yourself: 'Finally, we have the freedom of calling things by their names!' A fictitious freedom, as the text is much more intricate then that. The two female characters - one, played by Liliana Panã, drowned in the frustration of unrequited love; the other, speechless but kept in perpetual movement by choreographer Laurentia Barbu -, are perhaps the patients of a psychiatric ward, or maybe the dual image of the woman in a failed sexual encounter. Or, if we were to follow the words of the author, Vlad Zografi, they represent the crisis that the theatrical message is undergoing, in front of a stage on which the real tragedy of a sick society unfolds. The attempt to overcome this short-circuit through music is bound to fail eventually. The doctor-cum-medicine men-cum-shaman played with remarkable acumen by the jazz musician Harry Tavitian, gives up. Music bypasses the dullness of words but is finally unable to alleviate the pain of the world, enmeshed in its failures. To quote a line from Vlad Zografi's text, 'You don't need make-up to masturbate'. ' Orgasm' is a daring experiment, a cruel and ironic X-ray view of a crisis in artistic expression.
Florin Toma, The Zography of the World
(Ziua - June 2001)

Far from being dryly didactic, the monologue tells the story of a couple in a profound crisis. Two people, or - on another level, the man representing society and the woman, theatre-, have drifted apart, losing whatever attraction was keeping them together. It is impossible to tell which one of them carries the virus of boredom, of absence, of inadequacy. The therapy attempted in the show is music, sometimes tranquil and appeasing, at other times aggressive and full of intimidation. The dominant feeling is ambiguity, deriving from the strange, confusing relation between cause and effect. Words, gestures, tonalities trigger disquieting overreactions. The structure of the show obeys this sort of reversed harmony. The three voices complement each other and diffract. The actor, the dancer and the musician retain the individuality of voice, even when coming together in a chorus or in a masterful duet. They sometimes cross over, exchanging discourses, and the performance is outstanding. These transfers enhance the semantic multiplicity subtly delineated in Ana Olteanu’s set design. The show collapses different art forms. Refreshing and innovative, “Orgasm” opens up a new path in Nona Ciobanu’s artistic project, one only hinted at in “Tuscany” and perhaps informed by her experience as a manager of the Toaca Cultural Foundation.
Eugenia Anca Rotescu, A Crisis in the Marriage of Theatre and Society,
(Observatorul Cultural - The Cultural Observer, August 2001)

Nona Ciobanu’s show speaks about Absence. The woman-as-a-theatre, the man-as-a-society and the public become the subjects of a painstaking psychiatric “therapy”, behind closed doors.
Music is an omnipotent character, its creator - a consummate actor. Psychoanalysis gone astray, sexuality as surface of communication. Nona Ciobanu imagines a simple and straightforward, yet effective dialogue about our need of harmony. And the public cannot evade this question: each spectator has to formulate an answer. The challenge of Zografi’s text the way in which theatre and society intermingle and their incompatibility becomes visible.
Valentin Dumitrescu, Resonances at Toaca
(Revista “22” — The “22” Magasine, July 2001)