Antonin Artaud’s „The Cenci”
After: P.B. Shelley and Stendhal
Translated by: Georges Banu
Cast:
Cenci: Călin Chirilă, Camillo: Doru Aftanasiu, Andréa: Ionuț Cornilă, The Maid: Haruna Condurache, The Jester: Mălina Lazăr, Béatrice: Ada Lupu, Orsino: Horia Veriveș, Lucretia: Petronela Grigorescu, Giacomo: Pușa Darie, Bernardo: Diana Roman, Prince Colonna, Assassin: Radu Ghilaș, The Officer: Andrei Sava, The Pope: Diana Chirilă, Executioner, Assassin: Dumitru Năstrușnicu, Courtiers: Valentin Mocanu, Constantin Grigorescu, Fabian Toderică, George Gușuleac, Flavius Grușcă, Marian Stavarachi, Ionuț Cozma, Cosmin Puțanu, Robert Agape, Marian Chiculiță
Directed by: Silviu Purcărete
Set design: Dragoș Buhagiar
Original music: Vasile Șirli
Just as Artaud confesses, The Cenci is „a barbarian topic, outside of time, whose realization must leave both actors and audience exhausted.”
Cenci is the work of a torn individual. It is the failure of an Icarus… and I am highly delighted with its unexpected appearance on the Iaşi theatre stage. Forgotten elsewhere, here it is revived. A unique restorative gesture. The title of Artaud’s book, Le théâtre et son double/ Theatre and its double, has long remained an enigma. Now I understand that he, the Great Inquisitor, was also the great lover of the stage. Reversing the general belief, Artaud turned “life” into the double of theatre, the volcanic center whose energy offers to irrigate our lives. From the association “love and dislike of theatre” came his immeasurable faith in its regeneration. That is why young people, more than anyone else, are the ones who need it. The same happened to me once. Rebellion is a testimony of beginnings… a kind of optimism. And its memory, a present consolation. (Georges Banu)
