COCKPIT THEATRE LONDON
Two wonderful Romanian evenings in London
SUNDAY 6 0ctober 2013
ONCE UPON A SECOND TIME is a brilliant new play by the Romanian actor and writer Mimi Bransescu. Two actors are on stage; the man played by Vlad Zamfirescu, the woman by Mirela Oprisor. They have had an affair, maybe even a marriage; they speak, re-tell experiences from a broken and separate point of view.
There is an element of British kitchen sink drama as Vlad spends most of the 80 minutes (without an interval) making coffee and frying chips as he meditates on what went wrong. But this is no 1950s dialogue – this is terse, sparse, hilarious and profound.
On the other side of the stage the woman recounts her rapture and eventual loss. Amidst the pathos, there are hilarious monologues describing the two sets of parents; the skill of the writer here, is to tell his story with such pith and reality of touch that we get to recognise and care for the characters, even though we identify them as some low life we have known - we also come to recognise hilariously and painfully, how (in this remarkable play) they inflict their sins upon the lives of their children; there is one great line toward the end when Mirela says “My parents have untaught me how to love.”
This is a must-see – but you can’t! This play was brought to the UK by the Romanian Cultural Institute for a one-day showing at the Cockpit Theatre in London and really for a Romanian audience – the play was in Romanian but with large screen sub-titles which worked really well and the audience was indeed the London Romanian jet-set, lots of smart clothes and the atmosphere in the bar afterwards was one of sophistication, aspiration and success.
This play deserves a longer run here in London, it is right up there with the Irish and international best of this “play of monologues” genre.
Shaun Traynor
London Life scoop it
COCKPIT THEATRE
SUNDAY 8 December 2013
LA VOIX HUMAINE, by Jean Cocteau, brought to the UK by the Romanian Cultural Institute for a one evening showing
When the Romanian actress, Oana Pellea, was invited to do a one-night show in London, it was hardly surprising she chose the one act, one actor, Jean Cocteau play, La Voix Humaine, The Human Voice.
The play (about one hour long) is a monologue spoken by a woman, alone in a room entering her own private heartbreak. As she speaks on the telephone to her lover it becomes apparent to her that he has deserted her for another (younger) woman.
Ms. Pellea is at first hesitant, almost obsequious, flirtatious, but as the terrible truth begins to hit her, she becomes hysterical and frightened and by the end, approaches madness and despair.
When one considers that Cocteau wrote the play to allow “range of voice,” in other words he sought to write what could become an actress’s aria - to be in the Cockpit Theatre witnessing this great performance by this great actress which made the play burst with operatic grandeur and poetry was to be a sublime part of the writer’s intention. (Not surprisingly, the play was indeed later performed as an opera.)
But here in London, Ms Pellea’s range was astonishing; from very quiet, “ever so humble” pleadings to seductive longeurs, then to anger and anguished cries; at times we heard a voice like a very expensive cello, then again like the screeching of a squashed cat.
De la Londra, vă mulțumesc pentru o astfel de performanță bravură, doamna Pellea!