 So welcome everybody to the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center here at the Guadalcanter. My name is Frank Henscher of the director of programs and the executive director of the Segal Center. We do bridge the academia in professional theater, international and American theater. We are close towards the end of the season, but like in every good production in theater, you have to have something really good at the beginning and you have to have something really good at the end. So something in between doesn't completely work out, people will forgive you. Now we're coming closer to the end and we just had a great evening with Italian players and now we have something again very significant, I think, in a great evening store. We have tonight a channel with us and he actually is and flew in from Bucharest. Where did you come? The day before yesterday. Just totally to be here with us. We had a history with her. We had her as a guest eight years ago and I had a reading of her play, one of her plays, and also we published it in our volume which was outside and we also had it later on. And it is my great pleasure to also have Christina with us tonight who came to us with the idea we are friends, was in a camp to our program. She likes to have a prelude festival and other things we do. So we are in a constant dialogue as with so many other supporters. And tonight we will hear a truly extraordinary play directed by Tamela who also has a long history with us. So it's a wonderful, in a way, a family evening but also a very global presentation of things we always do here. So thank you all for coming to the structure of the evening will be introductions. A few words I ask her, about ten minutes to our contemporary theatre in Romania. Of course it's not enough. We take that culture in Romania as a great theatre culture for a long time. Also actually having a Yiddish theatre, one of the few really working Yiddish theatre which is still on its own across from the National Theatre in Moshe Azor often who is here and directs and works there a lot. And even so, one of all the actors comes from a Jewish European background where people learn Yiddish language and perform and the audience also in Romania is not really a part of the Jewish community but they do comment for over 40 years or 50 years now that created something incredibly special. He wants to do the evening about this here. So after the reading there, after the introduction will be a reading 40, 50 minutes and then there will be a little Q&A and some questions also revealed and a reception here in this very, very room. So again, thank you all for coming. I know it's the holiday season and most of our colleagues have folded their tents and so that's it. And we think if we have a great programme, so many things, we really want to show them, want to make it happy and we want to say yes instead of no. And thank you for Marvin Kalston who was here with us tonight. Great way to pull up the seat of the centre but also Professor of Theatre here at the Gwadar Zendari significant force internationally globally one of the leading Professor of Theatre, Boni Marangha from PHAR Journal, Stricy Brown from Arts League so many, many others. So really it means a lot to us to have such a great, great audience as we always say it's good to have a good important theatre and we also need a really, really good audience so thank you for being here with us tonight. My last note is about the phone. Just take a moment. I'll do the same. Take it out please and check that it's off. So it doesn't ring. Before I hand it over to Christina, it is my great pleasure to say and give credit to our thanks to the Romanian and cultural institute in New York. Can you raise your arms over here from the Romanian cultural institute who also does exceptional work I say from all the courses of cultural institutes in the city and also over a long, long period of time as your former colleagues so thank you for being here and supporting us. Christina. Thank you so much, Ren, for this kind introduction and thank you. It's kind of formal here but yeah. Thank you for being so open to the idea of introducing the Romanian Theatre in your series of International Theatre. That's a very important step for us. We were just talking with Janina earlier on that we were here eight years ago when you published, Marty Silver Center published a volume with Romanian new plays and here now that's the next step. It's going to be a very, very short presentation because of course there are a lot of things to say about Romanian Theatre but just to lay a little bit of background for this new, to understand how this new generation emerged I'm going to divide the recent history of Romanian Theatre in before 1989 and after 1989, the moment when the political regime changed in Romania and we started our long and very complicated transitional journey from communism to capitalism it's a very interesting journey especially for playwrights. They have a lot of things to pick up from these changes and so they do. So before 1989, next slide just a few words about the Romanian Theatre was very text based. Directors were engaging classical texts mostly less new plays because the propaganda was using the playwrights of the time so directors were afraid sometimes and avoiding taking on the new plays because they were commissioned by the regime so what happened was that the directors were engaging in a conversation with the audience using these classical texts and building a metaphorical language full of illusions and forcing somehow the spectators to read between the lines which was a game of cat and mouse so mice is in a way and the public enjoyed it very much. After this and the illusions were called the lizards because the ability of the small animals it was a comparison with the ability of the small animals to sneak around so it was a conversation outside the classical texts and followed all the time by the censorship Next slide. The censorship commissions were those who were always coming to the last which were rehearsals to check if everything was according to the rules of the regime of course sometimes it was not enough even if they allowed the artists to go on with the rehearsals and the opening night after the opening night sometimes they stopped the production they banned it. This happened with a lot of productions especially one of the most well-known scandals in Romania that time in 1961 was the banning of the inspector general production directed by Lucia Amidilié who is also a famous Romanian filmmaker and because of this Lucia Amidilié was not allowed to direct him to theatre anymore and he left the country Of course this was followed by a wave an entire wave of theatre directors and artists leaving the country in exile all around the world and that was a gain for other theatre movements of course and a loss for ours rather than just Lucia Amidilié Lucia Amidilié who is an Englishman now teaching at Columbia University and many others In the next show we will see Lucia today who at that time was the manager of the Gulangra Theatre where the inspector general was aged and he also lost his position as manager and he finally also left the country he also ran for a while in the Gulangra Theatre and then he taught at New York University and then Columbia and of course the same happened with Atrecia Amidilié all of them came after 1989 they came back in Romania and they fortunately connected with the next generation the younger generation and this was a very important phenomenon in Romania because young theatre people they had the chance to reconnect with these amazing theatre people theatre artists that was before the next one please after 1989 the 90s was a decade of theatre mixing with politics very much, sometimes too much there were very troubling years a famous actor Ion Karamit was one of the faces of the Romanian Revolution and he toured a lot because of that he was very famous back then and he's still very influential in Romanian theatres some even say too influential I'm saying that because you have to understand the dictatorship model that we inherited from the communist regime is still working sometimes in Romania in many fields not only in theatre next please in the 90s also a very important director emerged, Ziviu Polkarete you can see him here together with Halmus Sturmer his favourite designer Polkarete toured a lot in the 90s and he was really very famous I started going to international festivals in 1996 1996, 1997 and every time I was saying I'm from Romania someone would come and say Polkarete like it was a hello of that time in theatre next please he toured all over the world first three productions from the National Theatre in Kayoba most of his productions were based on on weak tragedies not all of them but most of them and then he staged a lot opera productions in opera houses all around the world and for a while he was the manager of the Limoges Dramatic Centre in France here this is a picture from Metamorphosis based on Alvin's lyrics produced by the Ziviu National Theatre next please and here this is a picture from France an adaptation that he made and he presented a lot on tour including in Edinburgh in 2009 and the picture shows Ophelia Popi she's an amazing actress and I chose her because she's also one of the actors actors working with Dania Herbunai of the Institute of Theatre next the most interesting things started to happen in 2000 starting with 2000 when non-conventional performing spaces were starting to be used and a wave of new drama emerged and next one of the things that happened was that the horror culture started to emerge and they used non-conventional spaces especially underground cafes not the public theatres even though we have a lot of public theatres in Romania this is also inherited from the communist regime public theatre sponsored by the state but still the younger generation they didn't have the place there was no place for them in these public theatres so they started to use all kinds of spaces mostly underground small cafes like the most the well-known one is Greenhouse Cafe where all the Disney's coming with the new generation they all started their productions there and then they formed a kind of a parallel culture it was like if you compare to New York the off movement in a way and some of them in time they were invited by the public theatres because they had success and they had a new audience which is something that public theatres are also interested in the small performing spaces forced the actors to play in a very minimalist style and this is very different from the old acting school in Romania that's one of the things that developed because of these small performing spaces next please one of these I think it's one of maybe the most relevant production played in Greenhouse Cafe was Stop the Temple by Jed Ritten and Lorette by Trenantus Murariu the play included poetry signed by a young poet and it was declared a 2000 generation performance because it was very representative for the new vibe that this generation had the play was speaking about the revolt of this new generation against the society very caught up in the capitalist trends Janina was using very few things three actors with fresh lights and she left the audience in the dark that was a very powerful series of choice and a very powerful production actually Stop the Temple is included in the volume that the Martin Siever Center published it's one of the things that you can find outside next please the most important project of the 2000s was the Dromaku project started by four young theatre directors they were still studying in the Euphrates University of Theatre & Film and their professor, Nikolai Manda they started to search for new material they think we don't want to stage classics anymore we are not interested in the playwrights that we have because they use this metaphorical language they are still caught up in the past and we want to speak about our new realities about our new world, so how can we do that they initiated this animal contest and they managed in a few years to gather a lot of new playwrights, new voices and to commission translations of new plays from other cultures because we were at that point still very isolated even though they were more than ten years past after the 1989 moment next please the Dromaku project was very successful fortunately and this kind of changed the face of the Romanian theatre because new audiences came to theatre and I see Janina laughing because here she is in a picture I am to this picture in Berlin we were all there invited by Shogunas Theatre and Thomas Ostermair he helped a lot in making her relevant for the European stage and Shogunas represented their productions Janina's and Pekka Stefan's production Pekka is one of the new voices that Dromaku contest had to become very well known for the younger generations and he is already familiar to theatre audiences in New York because he is starting working with Anamor Jinano and Tamila for Ovov Theatrix Company and I hope you will hear more about him and their work next please meanwhile Janina Kirpunau went on writing her own text and directing them sometimes her plays are staged by other directors all around Europe and not only and in 2014 she was invited to Avignon 18 years after the last Romanian director of course so last year she had great success in Avignon Festival with a production of National Theatre Review called Solidaritate which is a crossword between solidarity and solidarity because Janina is very she is talking a lot about the lack of solidarity in Romanian society and I couldn't agree more on the phenomenon that we have with us there but lately I think that's going to be changed I don't know who knows next one so I'm proud to introduce Janina Kirpunau one of the leaders of the new generation in Romanian theatre not only for her plays we are already translating it into many languages all around Europe but also because she's an advocate and she's a voice speaking up for the improvement of the working conditions in Romanian theatre in general for depoliticization of the theatre environment politics are still very present in theatre and in arts in general which is not very healthy and she speaks up for equity and respect for the younger artists so she's using her capital and her visibility to speak about the general problems and to advocate to change them so yeah I think that's about it I don't know if it's not we will now hear the reading and we will be in the panel afterwards and if you have questions we will be up here to answer them since there is no stage manager we thought it would be a good idea to tell you a few things this play is Mihaila, the Tiger of our Town it's by Janina Cargumariu hopefully I didn't put you the best pronunciation as Christy's here it's translated by James Christian Brown who has an easier name so of course he's not here we three are the actors we'll be playing the documentary makers there are a couple of scenes and we'll be playing in scene one taxi driver scene two homeless person one homeless person two scene three Japanese tourist French tourist translator scene four representatives of the population of pigeons crows and sparrows scene five is cup scene six school scene seven owner of the car car of the owner scene eight doctor scene nine bank branch manager and employee new zookeeper scene eleven animal one animal two animal three shall we begin good evening welcome to our play the story we are going to present is the tale of a Siberian Tiger born in a nice average size European city two years ago Mihaila the Tiger escaped from our city zoo and wandered free for almost five hours and the authorities managed to track her down we wanted to understand the circumstances in which this happened and so we tried to document every step that the big cat took right from the moment when she left her cage we mainly used our own interviews but there are also some material taken from the archives of the local TV station what you're about to see is thus a documentary play a play built up out of interviews with a good number of those who interacted with Mihaila and who are willing to share their experiences with us we thank them all for their kindness and assure them that we have done our best to remain faithful to their statements scene one interview with the taxi driver so what was it like I'll tell you what it was like it must have been nine o'clock ten past, twenty past at the most I took a group of tourists to the zoo no sooner had the tourists got out of the car then I found myself with what can I say I didn't even see when he got into the back seat and once the customer is in the car you can't say no customer is a customer you don't even bother with what they look like these days do you as long as they're a customer and they've got the money I took it he wanted me to take him to the center alright if I leave you beside the pedestrian area I took it he agreed to be honest I did most of the talking along the way but I don't know about this and that you know oh yes I know about the city and about how nice it is here especially the center completely renovated we have a very nice city welcoming and hardworking we have a city what can I say well like any self-respecting European city should be a real jewel and we're very proud of it of course there are parts that are rather not so pleasant so to speak but that will be dealt with in time you can't tackle everything all at once but these are small problems nothing important like the problems of the but that's not the fault of the city these are problems that come from the outside alright then it's from the south that all these problems come now they brought them here from the south there's lots of them here from the south they come up here they like it and unfortunately they stay they're noisy they're aggressive there's no way I pointed them out on the street see how they hang around in groups especially near the parks all day and at night what more can I say you just can't go that way I mean you do go but it's at your own risk they brought them here when the summit was on European city put them in trucks and dump them here seemingly it would cost a lot to kill them all I don't know there's got to be some solution put them in a field somewhere on the edge of town for example I don't know if they've bitten anyone I mean I don't personally know anyone that's been bitten by one of those wretched dogs but of course they've bitten people yeah that's pretty much what the discussion was about he listened seemed interested although he was looking out the window all the time like a tourist admiring everything I think he liked what he saw I arrived behind this pedestrian area and I said I'll leave you here he opened the door and made to get out and I said that'll be 15 man it's not free what's this about he gave me a puzzle look you wipe my windshield and clean my mirrors we'll call it even no free rides here everyone works in this city he wiped my windshield he wiped my mirrors and my headlights with his fur coat he was well wrapped up he had a fur coat real nice and then he headed off put down the pedestrian stream after that I got on with my business I picked up another group of tourists 940 I hope I've given the right answers scene 2 interview with two homeless people in the central park we'll tell you how that happened I saw him first I saw him before you he spoke to me first I didn't hear him say anything until I invited him to drink with us 39 meaning yes we didn't invite him he invited himself we don't just invite anyone to drink with us but she wasn't just anyone she was no hot shakes poor me at the end of the day she was nothing but a anyway it was me that I realized she was a she and not a he you can't even tell if you're a he or a she he said hey, fur coat come over here fur coats are feminine the thing is that that day I got hold of some cash and I had just got a bottle of the hard stuff rubbing alcohol to be exact we mix it with the same quantity of water so it goes further and so we don't go blind we come here to the park we sit on a bench behind the trees so no one would bother us we have two of these clear plastic bottles one of water from that fountain over there and the other one is empty we pour the water into the empty bottle like so till it's half full and then we pour in the alcohol till it's full we mix it like so and I gave her some of mine to drink that's not true, mine first I didn't even want to share come on, didn't I say it doesn't matter who was first let's just talk the story so that people can understand it because it's a story that they're interested in not who was first no? so we gave her a drink and we asked her, look, where are you from and she's like I'm from here where else would I be from who the fuck are you? pardon me, I said from here from this city I insisted because I go by the principle that it's not the clothes that make the man but the man that makes the clothes or the fur at any rate and she's like yes, I was born here in this city and your parents where are they from and she's like, they're from here too actually born here, right here no, they're a a theory who are you seeing that's the catch you can only say you're really from here when you're third generation but at the end of the day the important thing is to get on with your own business yes, that's what I said when I saw there'd be no end of it with her she started to get annoyed that third generation thing didn't go down well she didn't yell or anything but she started growling and we didn't fancy having some beat cop coming along to ask what we were up to the important thing is to get on with your own business keep in your place if everyone keeps in their place there's peace and quiet, there's prosperity it's a win-win situation and after that we asked her what she did well it turns out she didn't have a job I said to her, you know, in this city you haven't got a job you need to get one if you don't work, you don't live it's not like the other places that's all there is to it for Coke, my dear you gotta go look for work and you see this idea came to me so I said I said I'd go we'll arrange some work for you but you've got to be serious foreigners like faces that are strange a bit exotic the tourists think we don't realize that they're taking pictures of the buildings or something but we know that actually they want photos of us because we're special they've got buildings at home too maybe even nicer ones so I say come with us they'll take photos with you in them and we'll share the takings 50-50 she didn't negotiate it was your idea you, the pirates it was my idea but that doesn't matter she accepted no way she could refuse because the first day you worked for nothing because we gave you a drink no such thing as a free drink we went to the center to the places where they usually take pictures to the objective talk about success the tourists were coming in droves in 10 minutes the takings were as much as we usually make in a whole day and then I said let's take a break we've earned it I'll go and get a bottle of alcohol from the shop and I'll go get some water from the drinking fountain I left him alone and put a hat in front of him I mean if anybody wants a photo they can help themselves and pay for it it was all your idea you were the first to say let's take a break the things is we trusted her we trusted in her good faith and in the good faith tourists, fucking pardon me the thing is that we came back in about how long could it be let's take an hour and when we stopped a long way too and when we got back she was gone she abandoned her post it was only to be expected she didn't seem to like the work she didn't have much experience either with the tourists you gotta know how to get under their skin tourism isn't just a matter you've you've gotta know what to offer people and above all to get on with your own business you've got to like the work a bit too honestly I don't think she liked it she got used to the static sector but we realized afterwards when we found out where she came from she just sat there she just got her grove and slept all day seemingly she didn't move all day the tourists would throw stones through the fence and she still didn't move that is no way to do business that's right it's different when you get out of the cage into the free market like they say the proof being that she couldn't take the strain well it's more comfortable sitting and waiting for food to come to you isn't it seeing three from a local tv station with two tourists who saw Mihail I was just arrived in this town I had barely arrived in this wonderful city a beautiful riddle town in this incredibly beautiful city I take pictures everywhere I go I have probably 200 photos from this town he takes pictures everywhere he goes and has over a thousand pictures of this city everybody taking pictures to what to the people who are begging everywhere you go to sit and drink a coffee he did not have time to take pictures but he very much enjoyed drinking coffee and sitting on cafe terraces I rack European cities they are different very very different culture he likes European cities because they are so different I take pictures with buildings not so much people people don't stay still I like clear pictures he likes to take photographs of buildings not of people Europeans I like mascots I like them more than people because they stay still you can take pictures with them that's why he prefers mascots so I was drinking a cafe in one of these restaurants outside checking my email reading the news a few bagels passed asking for money on the cafe terrorist he checked his email and read the news this creature it is standing next to me I said to myself if I don't look at it he will go away and leave me alone someone a creature sat down at his table without asking permission but this didn't bother him much but this creature he did not go away he did not say anything like please give me money or doné moi it simply started to eat my omelette eat it omelette it sat at his table and didn't ask for money but ate his omelette the whole this tiger this mascot this tiger mascot was very cooperative with the camera I took more than 20 photos different angles it is born to be model I must say this tiger mascot was very pleased with the unexpected photo session after I take the pictures I say maybe I look a bit at it it was fascinating I must say this mascot looked really real for a few moments I forget about everything after he had taken dozens and dozens of pictures he thought he would look at the mascot he found it fascinating it was made in a very realistic way so much so that he forgot everything while he was looking at it then it drank my cafe and it served itself from my pack of gulwas yes I knew but that is exactly what this this creature did I managed not to look at it one single instant I avoided all eye contact the creature drank his coffee and smoked just one of his cigarettes from his pack of gulwas to avoid eye contact and to keep as close as you can he applied the method of avoiding eye contact and kept his eyes on his bag when I wake up the camera has gone when he woke from his fascination his camera had disappeared the camera is a vanished with all my pictures I have another camera not a problem but with other pictures the camera had disappeared but he is not upset because he has another one exactly the same I conveyed to the police and they made like risks to the appearance of the camera and our police did all that they could he appreciates their efforts and in general has been very impressed by the city and its inhabitants in spite of this unpleasant incident finally it stood up no merci, no au revoir, no nothing I paid half the bill it was evident it won't contradict what was the moment when I raised my eyes from moon or dark he paid half the bill but the person the creature was unwilling to contribute then he lifted his eyes from his computer and looked at it I saw him saw him we need something to believe something to hold on in this crazy, crazy world a kind of a kind of messiah but today messiah cannot go in a human shape the human shape it is so so compromised need a messiah so I guess his idea to come as as a tiger was not in the end such a bad one believe me I saw him I saw him he saw it and in general he too is absolutely delighted with our city and with our country scene 4 interview with the local representatives of the population of crows pigeons and sparrows I'll be honest and tell you straight up front the central square belongs to the pigeons all over the world squares belong to pigeons of course in the very first place they belong to people those who built them they belong to children to tourists but right after them come the pigeons so if we start from this presence this premise we don't want that very much to debate it was an act of trespass an infringement of territory the parks trees and all belong to the crows well the people too the people are so egotistical to put it elegantly sparrows don't know a thing didn't hear a thing zoos are for animals and birds in captivity alright we pass by that way too from time to time we go to the zoo too of course like everyone else especially when people come to because they go on to the teeth with popcorn when things get mixed it's not good the proof of all this that's happened after it was announced on tv and people started shutting themselves in their homes who were the first to suffer pigeons obviously not a single child to be seen for a good few hours and that's not fair we all have to live together somehow if we really are a community that is for us the crow population as I've heard them call us lately was actually good they forgot all about us for once started bothered about more serious problems they were even able to make a clear comparison between real dangers and inventing dangers we didn't see a thing didn't hear a thing it was a very difficult day they simply forgot about us I'll tell you the truth they're obsessed with us and not only here in this city in all cities all over the world we have a hard life what more can I normally they love us we actually feel very comfortable here in this city personally I wouldn't move anywhere else I feel I belong to this culture I really feel that seemingly we attack the city we derp on the pavements in the parks what more can I that's man for you he sees the straw in someone else's eye instead of seeing the plank in his own maybe we have some minor disputes you know on the matter of droppings for example all the same coming at it from our side the vision droppings are considered lucky if you look around the city and see how it looks I think we've brought our contribution toward this good luck seemingly we're noisy us noisy we're damn well noisy did you hear that man we're part of the identity of the old town we're the symbol of peace defining features of the city apart from small accidents in significant matters how should we know we don't have time to seemingly we steal food that's an aberration we don't steal we take the food that you throw away we clear up for you and another thing if prose stay in a place it's a sign that place is prosperous if you don't find anything more to eat it's goodbye so far that's not an issue so I say that's a good sign that's why the city takes care of us they even they even put in dispensing machines with food in the square that's a sign of recognition and respect on the part of the authority those authorities don't know what to invent next each of their ideas is more stupid and criminal than the last I agree that's true no he's perfect but we're not stupid we find things out too here's the latest a local council member has filled the city with posters saying I'm calling from memory here something like this Dear citizen we have received numerous complaints regarding the problem at some time has been troubling the district and the neighborhood in which you live and I refer here to the birds especially starlings and crows that have nested in the trees in the high school yard I am aware of the fact that these birds are troublesome from several points of view including the mess, the noise and the smell the method that I propose be applied urgently as it is the fastest and the least costly is to drive them away with gunfire I shall take personal charge of solving this problem you are sincerely council member I didn't remember his name not that I couldn't but I didn't want to man I don't remember the names of all the fools I don't know what comment to make either what comment can you make on such a genocide we saw her but we didn't go too near with creatures like that you never know you have to keep a distance I saw her obviously but I didn't go too close because I'm not stupid I stuck with the gang we looked down from above from the top of a tree we had a laugh too it was a real joke all those hunters and all the armed forces were in the woods while she was wandering free through the city she was wandering you gotta have perspective to see that but what kind of perspective can that army of criminals have no one peas in our city like that no one peas like that on us because that's what the likes of her do they pee, they invade the territory they market we had a few cases of fainting among our numbers that day from the smell of pee obviously good thing it ended well it was an unpleasant incident but as usual the authorities did their duty I'm satisfied all of us the whole population of pigeons are satisfied a bunch of blood thirsty criminals well man can't you wander through the city or even over the city anymore does it say anywhere no tigers or no crows does it say that anyway does it fairies didn't hear a thing we don't have time to we spend all day sitting on package terraces with our eyes on tourist plates maybe just maybe there'll be something left over but not much you people have such an appetite now of course a number of us were lost that day about 45 my sister so that's 46 she was looking into some tourist plate when Hila I mean Mrs. Tiger approached that was her, gone my sister she had only herself to blame these things happened scene 6 interview with the school so when she arrived in front of the big stairs it was 12 maybe a little earlier when the old bells of the old clock in the old tower rang 12 o'clock she was already there luckily all the children were already inside after the lunch break that was when we saw her she just stood there she stood there for almost 20 minutes she was just standing there and staring at I have no idea what she was staring at maybe probably the children maybe I was trying to guess what was in her mind what were her eyes trying to say what her plans were would she just sit there or would she try to get inside the pupils, the teachers, the principal everybody was looking from the windows taking pictures, making signs to her, different signs but she didn't move she just sat there she just sat there and just she just wanted I don't know to belong maybe but think for yourselves I can't open my doors to her I have to think of the security issues and about the student base many parents would take their children to other schools immediately and then we would have to close as a school I am responsible for education inside these beautiful brick walls education has been going on for over 200 years and I can't throw it all away because of her then she just left when we heard what had happened well nobody has to suffer from this event at least not from our side and that's basically my responsibility scene 7 interview with the owner of the car and the car of the owner well there's not much to tell you the moment someone threatens my property I'm as they say I entitled yes entitled to retaliate because by the time the law comes to give me justice those guys can come and do what they like in my house it didn't actually enter the house it's not exactly well he followed me into the yard I had just come home in my car that's mean okay well I have very tall yes basically there's no way you can get past them you can't see a thing through our gates yes well for all that when I get out of the car I found myself face to face with this animal and this animal plunked down right by the door I'm sorry but there's no other word I can use well that's what it was it is an animal I mean it was I said what business have you got an animal like you in my yard kindly get that hell off to where you came from and he had no intention of moving probably attracted by the sound of my car it has an amazing ending anyway I saw he wasn't going to leave so I went into the house it started to scratch my door right around here I went in took my rifle from the cover I knew what a rage sweetens would get into when she saw well I was stunned what can I say no, wait a minute I want you to understand where I'm coming from I go out into the city I only ever park beside cars of the same caliber because the guys with nose peugeots, trash like that it's no problem for them to get their car scratched but for someone like me who's got a Maserati a Bugatti something like that he opens his door carefully pays attention to all the parks right so when I saw that that fucking animal had done to me I'm sorry there's no other word I can use it actually is an animal is this kind of thing possible in a country where property is guaranteed by law well I went right up to him and there he was mouth wide open language and since his mouth was open wide I stuck the rifle there between his teeth he didn't move so I opened the boot took out a wrench I was so angry I didn't know where to start so I pulled out one of his nails claws then I pulled out the rest on the principle of an eye for an eye a tooth for a tooth and a claw for a scratch he didn't even say boo what the hell could the animal say when I had all the evidence that he had trespassed on my private property devastated my private property I said get the hell out of here before I call the police what's the word I was raging someone else in my place would have knocked him flat or made him pay for a new car but how would a fucking animal like that pay so I made this necklace out of his claws put it here on the dashboard the animal's claws symbolize passion courage and extreme agility scene eight interview with the ER doctor that's how it is in the ER he comes next and you don't even look at the patient's face you're still sewing you're like a sewing machine on autopilot at a certain point in came the individual he had rather nasty wounds severe bleeding from the upper and lower limbs I started to sew him up two minutes later another patient barged in and I was sewing up the one and he said when are you taking me I'm dying out here and I said if you take his place then I can't guarantee that someone else won't take your place and I started yelling that his life was more important than the life of a you know the kind of discourse I don't see any need to yelling away and me sewing away at the other and suddenly I lost my tape temper and yes I stuck him in the wrong place because the one I was sewing started howling it came to and I was how can I describe it a blood curdling howl and then I started howling too something like that when I finished the guy who had barged in had gone and the other wasn't howling anymore either so I sewed him up and left apparently they heard it all through the hospital so I kept thinking about it and in the end I sent some applications to hospitals abroad right then the very next day I've already had answers from Ritten and from Germany scene 9 interview with the bank manager and his employees it was 1245 it says so on her ticket number for the line she left it on the desk of course I don't sit at the front desk I came later my colleague can give you more details he interacted directly with I didn't realize at first what the customer wanted to ask for information to open an account with us to take out a loan of course not all of our customers who come into a bank know how to formulate their requests there are a lot of elderly people or people without any education in banking so we try to help them of course there are also situations especially in these days when quite a few customers come in rather rather embarrassed especially those who are interested in loans for house purchase I've noticed that they don't know quite how to explain what they want not because they don't know what they want but just because they know they've got no chance of getting what they want to do which is in principle a good thing the main problem that we come up against we don't come up against it they do is that their salaries are too low meanwhile the big line had formed behind her behind the lady there have been staffing cuts here too there's no way out of it the crisis the competition very well like this those who are left have become more active more efficient which in principle is a good thing I finished the explanations but the customer just sat there which in principle is a good thing it means that this is a genuinely interested customer who wants to find out more details I asked her repeatedly is there anything else I can help you with please tell me if I can be of any resistance as you can see there are a lot of customers I don't mind you of course the customers had started to grumble I was getting the blame for not moving fast enough I asked for her ID she produced it named Mihail I couldn't find her in the system I deduced logically that she didn't have a card either or any other credit with us I presumed that she wanted a personal needs loan I looked at the customer trying to guess what she might offer as security it was insane we trade our staff to be one step ahead of the customer to realize what solutions might be found to help them which in principle is a good thing by the way I identified one thing that could serve security her fur coat I explained the conditions the steps she would have to take I showed her the contract here's the contract signed by the bank I valued it at 5000 euro I gave her a loan of 250 euro when it came to giving her the money she started to growl I don't know what got into her because I talked nicely to her very politely, very calmly she didn't want to take the money she threw it on the floor her money, her business I made a sign for the security guard to come I lent the security guard with the customer to manage which in principle is a good thing these days we never know what can happen people are desperate and when they are desperate they resort to all sorts of extreme measures it had never happened to us before we weren't scared, we had no reason to be we have a security system and protections although in the video its head I mean her face by the time I got there she has gone so I personally didn't see her the money had gone too the people waiting behind her had picked it up off the floor well her money her business they picked it all up in a couple of seconds no, we weren't scared we had no reason to be it's quite difficult to rob a bank these days about as difficult as taking out a loan which in principle is a good thing and the protection I mean now I'll tell you the story of the fur coat it's a nightmare our lawyers are trying to pick apart the threads of the story basically at this moment we should recover the fur coat we have the contract signed with the customer of course she unfortunately is now deceased however the fur coat belongs to us to the contract except that now the zoo claims that this customer was its property fur coat and all in other words they claim that the fur coat didn't belong to the customer so she couldn't use it as security which to us seems atrocious absurd abominant but that's not all who has donated the fur and the bones to the faculty of biology for study and now the university says they are the right for owners the whole thing is terribly complicated still we I mean our lawyers hope to recover what can still be recovered at the end of the day we have a contract and all in our casting is that it should be respected which in principle is a good thing isn't it scene 10 interview with the new zookeeper diagnosis acute depression yeah caused by the disappearance of somebody you would somebody you loved it is not easy to get over to get over a disappearance like that something you can't explain to yourself you were together sharing the same space you open your eyes every day seeing the other one and one day she just disappears yeah she just vanishes without you know saying anything jumping into nowhere your mind just it can't understand it is probably more difficult to understand than death at least you can see the dead body the dead body is like the evidence of something that's not there anymore and when you don't even have that your mind is blown away you're stuck in just just like you're you're just up what can I say such a painful thing to see really depressing immediately speaking they say depression isn't contagious the hell it isn't let me tell you the moment somebody is depressed people run away like crazy like there's this I don't know it energy you something you can't touch but it touches everyone in a very strange way like you see these these days we try not to look at I mean we constantly turn our eyes away from them you know things that are let's say dirty or painful or just disturbing do you see people showing unhappy moments on Facebook I mean maybe sometimes like rarely but when they do they are actually looking for compassion or sympathy but did you ever see desperate really desperate people taking photos of themselves and posting them I closed my Facebook page sometime ago couldn't stand all this social hypocrisy obviously sad faces fucking annoying well still not so fucking annoying as the happy faces yeah depression is something people do not want to see because they don't yet have an icon to cope with that like I don't know just drinking just being there and trying to be human maybe because it's hard fucking hard it's like I know it's so well I was employed here just after the event with Mahila I was working in another place better paid and stuff you know then I had some problems for a long time I couldn't find the proper job in my field I tried to find one closer finally I said after all why not this one since nobody wanted to take it after the event it was my luck nobody wanted to apply for it so in the end they had to give it to me no I'm not afraid not at all why should I animals are not as dangerous as people animals are not they're not as can you shut the camera for a second so coming back to our well the idea is that people come here too they don't want to see just put yourself in our position in the position of zoo's management you have a little tiger a baby a tiger baby totally depressed he doesn't move he doesn't respond to me just sitting there like he actually is the dead body of the disappeared mother intimidating everybody animals, people working at the zoo visitors, children everybody so we you can exchange animal between zoos that's what we did we exchanged the gear that was the name of Mihaila's son we exchanged him for a pair of kangaroos no actually we didn't tell them that he was depressed it was a zoo in Germany they didn't know too much hot stories so we thought in the beginning maybe it was right, wasn't right not to tell them the truth the end of what the kangaroos they gave us they were depressed too at least they jumped I guess in the end the exchange was quite fair scene 11 interview with anonymous animals at the zoo really? that happened at our zoo all I know is the official version the one that was the number the number being her neighbor I saw everything that morning, Tuesday I think it was Saturday or Sunday because they were tourists there's something else they come first thing in the morning give us no peace for two days photographs, video, twigs, popcorn screens, the kind of species that these tourists are I can't stand them my mind was so much that by Sunday evening we end up beating each other I beat you lots of times and you, me, I you should see the fights the blood, broken hands, horns, faces Monday morning you think there'd been a war you should come by and shoot sometimes as I was saying that morning Mr. C, the keeper, swept the enclosure went out, pushed the door to but didn't shut it he emptied the waste bucket into a sack that he had on a wheelbarrow went in to see her and the others stop for a chat as usual he's a friendly man as Mr. C there's no end to the stories, he'll tell you don't interrupt me or I'll lose the thread well then Mr. C opened the safety lock to let them into the enclosure and that's when she saw the open door and she went out obviously no one would have done it two paces I think she had taken when Mr. C saw her he went up to her and said what are you up to? hey, me hi brother and she's like I'm just going out for a little walk and he's like hey come back here girl you want to ruin me they'll fire me I'll lose my job and Mr. C was right, they fired me honestly, I mean she's outside and she's like take it easy Mr. C I'm just going out see the town for myself and he says hey me hi brother what do you have to see the town for it's not for you you'll get lost and you won't know your way back and she's like I'll mark my territory you think I'm stupid and he says now think of me what am I going to tell him and from outside she's like I don't know Mr. C tell him the truth that I've got out to see the world for myself and he says there are strict rules here no one goes out just when they feel like it you know what happens to animals that run away from the zoo and she's out there and she's like what happens and he says the people shoot them they don't stop to talk it over like we're doing now and Mr. C was right about that he's interrupting me I'll smash her face and she's out there and she's like I'll take the risk I want to see the world for myself I'm dying of boredom here Mr. C these tourists drive me out of my mind and he says hey kid you don't know what freedom is like you were born in captivity you don't have the reflexes to defend yourself to get by and these folks don't have time to stop and talk they'll execute you and that'll be the end of it plus you don't know the language and she's out there and she's like I'll learn and he's like hey Nihila here you're an attraction it's a different matter outside people like to come and visit you but they don't like to be visited come on be a good girl and come back inside and she's like Mr. Acastica no just his and she turned her back on him and she was off she ran into the woods after that I don't know well when word got round that Nihila had gone for a walk you know what it was like it was an empty knot of soul just lots of bags on benches they ran away before you could save food after that I personally don't know all I know is that they shot her and now the question is did we make her go what we know is this our vet went out with his tranquilizer the one he uses to put us all asleep we've got a real horror in that thing there was a professional hunter too the one that shot her the vet shot first with the tranquilizer and she got angry because she was on her way back to the cage man there's no way you can get along with people all their great heirs of being more enlightened than us more civilized and not being animal but if that's civilization no thanks supposedly she jumped at them when they fired the tranquilizer I heard she was calm I mean she gave him the sort of look that they thought she was upset to say something to them but she didn't get the chance to hunter fire no, my high level let's not forget what she got in her animal record meaning meaning well didn't she rip open a tourist's leg a year ago but didn't she provoke her he kept sticking his food through the fence he threw all sorts of things at her because she wasn't taking any notice of I for one wouldn't have stooped to his level did I make her go my high level never fought anyone but herself Mr. C got fired the director resigned and so on one inquiry after another one TV channel after another a black mark against the zoo a black mark against the city it is true that she didn't think very much about us about the rest of us wasn't it because of her that they put up the electric fences they put her on my cage as it was now I have to take care not to get fried so did we make her go up did I make her did you make her it was all of her own fault shut up you I don't know what you're on about why should I shut up you never stopped talking all day Bethel or he'll be sorry you see these clothes stop this holding for something maybe you want to taste to and then we wondered the opinion of these people and why they have that opinion about us you know what you want no photographs we've had enough and I'd like you not to put my real name right I'm called pussy just to be clear so there's no pussy there or Marcel or Lily or Gia or Maria or Blackie or Coco or Christina or Lucy or Misha yes yes we have a right to anonymity too and the discussion with Mr. C I'd rather that didn't appear at full I mean so that no one can tell it was me because people make all sorts of connections and I don't want to have problems because the zoo is small and you've seen what animals are like what's the message I mean what light are you going to show us the animal identity is very important how is the zoo going to be seen how is it going to be presented to the city to the country what I said about people that's between you and me I only use the positive bits because there's plenty that's positive the business with Mihaila that was an unpleasant incident but we like it here what's the message you're going to be we're a model zoo I really want to know if the message is going to be the message in general we all live in peace in general we mind our own business in general we love the tourism in general we love the people in general we love one another here we respect one another in general we are solitary amongst ourselves we are very solitary you're really looking for trouble aren't you come on say it so in general we're not just solitary we're very solitary man in general we're all right could be better in fact and we wish you the same is that recorded is that recorded first of all the director you want to ask four five years ago and then I went in the city and I did like two weeks of research I did interviews but I was not actually so much interested in the story of the tiger but in the way that town reflected that event and I was very much interested in the people of this town not of this town particularly but this town it's very middle-sized European town it's very relevant for a kind of mentality kind of conservative flow it's a close community and they are more and more a lot of Europeans these kind of cities are I don't know feeding these spheres they have for the stranger for the unusual yeah I think it is a documentary place where you capture something real and in a way it's kind of a magic realism documentary theater play cast talk, animals talk and we hear from all around so is that something you feel is capturing that moment of transition in a stronger way let's say you just put so many people to do that documentary you can play a clip in the ooms or arms it's all that's real and we are all obsessed we live in a time of of realism of data collections and theater has to be real TV has to be real we all know whatever one thinks of real is made up but your idea is to put it in some kind of a fairy tale but still it's very moving so is that your idea of a new realism or is that an idea of a theatrical fairy tale you try to explain something in a bright sense to the world I did and I do a lot of documentary theater and I'm really interested in realities and in the ways you can translate that on stage or display it's very different from everything I've done and actually I took this liberty this freedom to have some distance to documentary theater and actually mocking the methods that I use it's a good thing at some point to make fun of yourself and of your own methods I didn't try to play like this before and I don't think I would write on the one like this but for me it was interesting to play a lot with these conventions for instance you would have this scene with the pigeons the crows actually there were real people having this kind of speech and it's interesting to maybe to see from this perspective but they are real people and that's what we spoke before the actors I mean Tamila knew that the actors don't have to play birds they don't have to play animals it's speech it's a human speech like a tradition of a Maslini and others so it is quite interesting that at the time we heard before from Christina that some third people actually had to stop working because it was not socialist realism that was shown also you don't show what some people call it as a capitalist realism you also transform this in a truly imaginary way and I think this is why it is so interesting and one just cannot stop listening imagining that play and it felt it captured something of a transition who all of a sudden had to face even for a short moment a revolution or a change in society but animals escaped it does capture imagination I know there was just in the the entire circus was opened up there were two brown bears or three brown bears and black bears they are going around in the streets and people have seen them or not so it is quite an interesting beautiful description of a moment does it fit even at the contemporaries or do you feel it is something very exceptional what she does is a new way of storytelling as a magic capitalist realism I don't know there is another level that I see this play is talking about how can you enjoy freedom when you are born in captivity and I think this it sums in a way our question as a society how can you learn how to it is a huge responsibility to be free and to deal with this freedom and when you are born in captivity it is even more difficult so like Jenna said this play is very different from the others in the other plays of her it is a mockumentary but the other plays are they also have a level of magic in a way each of them in a different way they are inspired by realities because as I said this new generation wanted to dive into these realities they were very obsessed with reading the reality but I think the most interesting step is getting outside this reality not be captive in this reality and invent a form of a personal vocabulary to translate these new realities and I think Jenna is the most advanced in this journey that playwright has to take to come from reality and translate this reality with a personal vocabulary I think that's an interesting thing that she is doing well Jenna has a question before we come to the end also it used to be that people got shot in East Berlin but when they before the 89 they tried to get out so recently where there is this kind of freedom to explore but the tiger is still got shot is that your in a sense that freedom being bred somehow behind walls behind the cage like that famous Wilke poem and now there is suddenly is that doomed? do you feel that your prognosis think is that I realize now that because it's about Romanian contemporary theater we tend to speak about 89 and about the walls but actually when I wrote the play which was 2012 I was more thinking about the European context I feel much more connected with what's going on now because for me 89 is important but it's still 27 years ago so I think for instance this year in September this play premiered in Stockholm in Dramaten and it was in September it was in this time of the refugee crisis and the audience read it that way I mean it was so they connected with the Romanian context but with that context at that time and I think I wanted to write at that time a play that would speak about all these nationalist friends about these fears about this political how to say the way they use these fears so I was very much interested in that thing but of course we can really in different ways which is the mark of every great art and it's still in the beginning of the reading very much about immigrants or people coming in and you do not know are they dangerous or are they not dangerous what will they do Tebala you have worked with Gemina before what's your take on this play this is actually our first time together though I know from my colleagues how much of a steam that they worked in this work so it was really a real pleasure to be able to really encounter her a face to face in a situation where we were looking at her play this was an incredible experience for us fast and brief and wonderful but even in the time that we left the rehearsal going back to talk about the play and the repercussions of the play and the immediacy that this text has now in this country for us and how rich it was it's such a rich exploration of our own nationalism of our own fear of losing our America of our own idea of the other and the many different kinds of others that exist in this country and I said oh here we have to do it with five people because how about the black guy you have all these different communities that separate themselves and that that trade teams and that so much of what we see happening here in the play was about people being able what they'll give up for their own for their own security and I thought it's just such a there's just more time to explore that our relationship to this particular text it was really a delight thank you thank you the play where the city of town which is an aura of a sub-performance is in disorder and then when you do you shoot the time when you open and you stand and say I'm just trying to take a walk I'm even going to go back it is truly an open and it's a structure and it's really and for sure will be for many years to come so thank you so much for coming truly here for finding for me also to share the play with us it's a wonderful and I seem to be a pause to the actors that was truly a tour de force and also humans and all of it so maybe we could write to the audience and we have a couple of questions if possible directly to the play and we are recording this and we also have a little live stream so this is why we need the microphone it's also good to hear better so we start with you and take the microphone hold it and introduce yourself hello my name is Adriana and my question is good work right good work I did have a moment of life in its art because this was written in 2012 right not last week so I mean not after Monday I'm looking you know what I'm talking about and when those people said you want to kill us you want to kill all of us if you are mine they want to kill us don't kill pigeons so let's kill the pigeons with the guns oh no it's the crows oh the crows I'm sorry the crows I was a pigeon for our stay in another plane so what exactly was in your mind when you wrote that line actually I didn't write that line that was a ready made it was actually an announcement in the CTC view when the official people they decided that there are too many crows and the best solution would be to kill them with gunfire and yeah that's real I think of Peter Brooke who said this is a playground and the stage which he appalls calls it our place to play and when I watched your plane I kept on feeling like everyone of us could read something into whatever we are experiencing into your play it was quite delightful when you think about who we are and all of this is about a piece of ourselves and I love the act it was just really quite powerful my question to you is what did you learn in the process of doing it actually what I learned was while I was doing the interviews with the people of this town and you learned a lot while confronting your fears with other people's fears I think you learned a lot about this situation because they express their fears but not connected with the tiger but with other problems the addicts terrible but at the same time good to understand comment or question I would have to say sorry so my name is Sipyan I have a question did you try to save the tiger to save the tiger? well actually she was dead before I started the research so I couldn't do too much there is no version there is no version unfortunately not no happy endings you have to say happy endings makes us depressed sometimes put endings like this where we end up with depressed kangaroos it might be much better and much more delightful thank you so much for coming we have additional questions hopefully you all will stay around here thank you so much what a great pleasure we have the luxury to release your voices one of the most original documentary theatre plays we have ever heard of senior and this is of course why you are such a great writer thank you so much we hope you come back and won't take ideas thank you very much for inviting me thank you very much the actors thank you very much Tamila thank you Christina thank you to all of you for being here with us thank you