Most of the plays I wrote are scenarios for performances in Active Art project. They are based on the documentation process together with the community involved in the project. Through the safe space generated by the theatre convention, problems and hard topics are negotiated or brought into the light, through the performance and the talkbacks. Themes of my work are the eviction of the Rahova Community, the antidiscrimination law which won’t be passed in the Republic of Moldova in 2011, projects in the Maximum Security prison in Craiova or the project of the community of corporates of Bucharest – marginalized people brought into the light through theatre and active art projects.
Bogdan GEORGESCU – artist, observationist. Tools in use: playwriting, documentary and community theatre, video composing, producing, social intervention, project management. Soros Fellow of UEP 2004; Cornerstone alumni of Institute 2, CEC Arts Link Fellow – residency hosted by Brown University, Writing for Stage Program. He collaborates with Hebbel am Ufer HAU Theatre in Berlin for the Houseclub – program dedicated to teenagers of the neigbor highschool, in performances such as The Unlikely Event, Reboot and Flexination. He participated as artist, speaker and trainer in several international festivals, conferences and symposiums on community theatre and social involved art in the United States of America, Serbia, Moldova, Slovenia, Germany, Czech Republic, France, Great Britain, and Romania.
His plays include: Romania! Kiss me, I am special, XXXCartoons, D.W.–3D text; House of People, ROGVAIV, No Support, For The Win, Triple, Everything is realities, Antisocial, Because you’re Worth It, #minor, MAL/PRAXIS. Youtube channel: bo2gdan.
He has received numerous awards and honors: dramAcum Cross the/your borders Award for DW – 3D text; Soros Open Society Foundation Fellowship (2004), International Theatre Critics Association Award for The countryside Tour – community theatre project (2010), Irish Embassy Award For Best Emerging Playwright (2011); Best Performance for ROGVAIV, The Romanian Drama Festival, Timisoara (2012), Romania! Kiss Me participated in New Plays From Europe Festival – Wiesbaden, Germany (2010), Best Young Artist for Romania! Kiss Me, Kontakt Festival, Torun, Poland (2012), Theater Award of Romanian Cultural Radio Station for Antisocial (2015), Excellency Award Iulian Vișa, Sibiu International Theatre Festival (2016).
Texts:
2017 MAL/PRAXIS – The National Theatre Sibiu and Sibiu University “Lucian Blaga” RO
2017 Reboot – HAU Berlin DE
2017 Radio Theatre – Berlin Mondiale project și Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin
2016 The Unlikely Event – HAU Berlin DE
2016 #minor – The National Theatre Sibiu and Sibiu University “Lucian Blaga” RO
2015 Because you’re worth it – observational Active Art project, O2G and The National Museum of Contemporary Art Bucharest, RO
2015 ANTISOCIAL – The National Theatre Sibiu and Sibiu University “Lucian Blaga” RO
2015 Everything is realities, public reading, directed Kyle Metzger la The Tank, New York, USA
2013 Triple Point – coproduction of National Theatre of Targu Mures and Colectiv A Cluj Napoca RO
2012 For The Win – Active Art project and documentary theatre, Galeria 26, Bucharest RO
2011 ROY-G-BIV – Active Art project around the antidiscrimination law in Moldova, Spalatorie Theatre, Chisinau MD
2009 I am special – community theatre performance, part of the Tour in the countryside project, RO
2009 Romania! Kiss me, directed by David Schwartz, Iasi National Theatre, Iasi RO
The trilogy Howfararewefromthecaveswecamefrom?
ANTISOCIAL – beyond borders of Traditional Education
ANTISOCIAL – A province town high school, year 2015, Romania. The students create a secret group on social media. The teatchers find out, inflitrate and take action. With the support of some of the students. # freedom of expression # violation of privacy # trust # respect # comment # educational system # trashed # public space # snitch # slander # share # lack of professionalism # bribe # like # outdated # dialog @ any level # how far are we from the caves we came from? # hashtag
ANTISOCIAL is an Active Art performance combining devising theatre, documentary theatre and observational performing techniques, exploring new types of theatricality and dramatic structures. The performance was originally produced by Radu Stanca National Theatre of Sibiu and Lucian Blaga University.
#minor – beyond borders of Parental Authority and Nationality
#minor – “A father’s slap is blessing?” “Is beating sent from heaven?” “I made you, I have the right to kill you?” What are the educational methods for raising a young adult in Romania in 2016? Who educates adults for raising future adults? #minor is the analysis of a social and political context in which the passing of responsibility and the use of particular cases to create manipulation platforms are goals in themselves. We live in a society where choosing a scapegoat is the best solution to any problem. The lack of dialogue, awareness and accountability are just trivial issues. Infantilization, an approach turned into mentality, applied to most young adults as an educational method, can build a society we would like to be part of?
#minor is an active art performance combining devising methods, documentary theatre and observational performing techniques, exploring new types of theatricality and dramatic structures. Co-produced by Radu Stanca National Theatre of Sibiu and Lucian Blaga University.
MAL/PRAXIS – beyond borders of Power Structures and Responsibility
SAUVAGE – a hairdressing-massage-manicure salon in a provincial town, Romania 2017. Seven different roles, seven scenes, seven performers. Each performer adopts each of the seven perspectives. Conversations jumps from types of invisible underwear, to what an open relationship means, to what’s the ideal size for a penis, while elsewhere there is an event in progress that will change their lives forever. A community pressured by fear–caused by unequal power relations, corruption and supposed supernatural forces–becomes incapable of action. The mal/praxis is collective and the consequences are, obviously, catastrophic.
MAL/PRAXIS is an Active Art project devised together with the students and acting professors of the Theatre Department of The University of Sibiu Lucian Blaga in co-production with The National Theatre Radu Stanca Sibiu.
MAL/PRAXIS is the final part of the trilogy Howfararewefromthecaveswecamefrom?, after ANTISOCIAL and #minor.
Antisocial
A province town high school, year 2015, Romania. The students create a secret group on social media. The teachers find out, infiltrate and take action. With the support of some of the students.
# freedom of expression # violation of privacy # trust # respect # comment #educational system # trashed # public space # snitch # slander # share # lack of professionalism # bribe # like # outdated # dialog @ any level # how far are we from the caves we came from? # hashtag
Text developed through Active Art methods together with the performers.
For the win
– corporation vs community –
ACTIVE ART PROJECT
“It should have been – as many others – a revelation of the alienation in the big companies, lifting the fist menacingly (the left one eventually) against the perverse effects of capitalism: dehumanization, modern slavery, the idolatry of efficiency, the fateful competition, aggression. It came out instead, a watercolor of human inconsistency. Workaholics who forgot what it’s like to have a free weekend, dedicated employees – body and soul, young people that have no other life than the professional one, ambitious people caught in the careers’ vortex – basically, light human shadows.” – “Is this still a human being?”
ArtActMagazine, Catalin Bogdan, November 2012
ROMANIA! KISS ME
An unemployed alcoholic with a really poor dental health, left by his wife to go to work in Italy, a paranoid old lady who terrorised her relatives in Germany with unexpected visits and an immature girl with a man’s name because her father always wanted to have a boy to give him his name, meet in a train compartment and give each other all the arguments they need to truly hate Romania. The play is build as a “concert” given by the orchestra of visual, smell and sound generators, heckling and punctuating the actions onstage, orchestrating their hate and hypocrisy, their lack of education and sense of tolerance and the strong energy generated by their dream of leaving the doomed place.
Characters: 1 m, 2 f, The Orchestra
– Extracts of ROMANIA! KISS ME –
VASILE – 20 years old, a student (female)
MISS RENATA – 58 years old, retired, building administrator
MR. NEAGOE – 48 years old, unemployed
THE ORCHESTRA – sonorous /visual /olfactory – permanently in action
MRS. BURAGA, VASILE’S FATHER, THE INTERVIEWER, THE BOSS’S SON, THE OFFICER, THE WOMEN AT THE EMBASSY, THE CLERK, THE MECHANIC and THE TV REPORTER are played, in turns, by members of the orchestra.
(…)Vasile returns to her seat; a man selling beer, coffee and mineral water is shouting; Neagoe takes a sip and offers some to Vasile, who also declines his candy offer.
Miss Renata: I’m leaving. Going abroad. It’s my sixth time this year and every time before I leave all this shit this happens to me. And I don’t want to return. They send me back after a month, when they are bored with me. I return, stay here for a couple of weeks, then surprise them and go back. To my nieces in Germany. But this time this is it, I’m not coming back!
Mr. Neagoe: That sounds very sad. For you, actually. I doubt it that you have worked abroad to see how it is to be a slave for people who don’t give a damn about you and who constantly remind you that they could find someone better. Telling you that you are stupid. That you are a thief. That you are a gypsy. That you are Moldavian…
a man selling beer, coffee and mineral water is shouting
Miss Renata: But can’t you see this filthy mess? The degree to which this country has degraded… One could eat from the floor there!
Mr. Neagoe: I could never leave… My wife is in Italy. The way things go there… It’s a disaster… Not being able to slaughter your own pig for Christmas, to do things your way, because you know homemade products are still the best. This is what those capitalists are looking for, actually. Natural products. As natural as possible. How can they be natural at the supermarket?! I prefer to solve my problems in my own way and avoid that fucking nosey community. Caring, my ass. This young lady is right. It stinks in here. I’m opening the window, I don’t care what you say.
Miss Renata: Are you determined to torture me?! Leave it like this! Could it be from the lard? God damn that Buraga woman!
The orchestra
Whistling
train sounds
whistling
cursing
bottles flying
shattered glass.
The train departs
Miss Renata: (standing up and taking a chunk of lard put of her suitcase) It doesn’t smell like lard. It’s not from the lard. This is “orgheanic” That’s what they call it, “orgheanic”. Do you like it?
Mr. Neagoe: Really good!
Miss Renata: This is how I get by there. With “orgheanic fud”. I sell this shit. And it seems like no matter how much I wash myself, I still stink of onion. I can’t get rid of the smell. A country reeking of onion and lard. (she wipes her hands, disgusted) It disgusts me! It turns my stomach!
Mr. Neagoe: Well, madam, knowing how to live here is an art. You have to know how to enjoy it, how to get by, how to make the best out of this shit. The best! And it can be done. You know it can be done. But not as a slave for the foreigners!
Vasile: This “getting by” thing… it’s the best! We do anything to get by, right? You would sell out even your own mother. Creepy.
Mr. Neagoe: Like it’s better to be humiliated by foreigners. You really imagine that I don’t know what women do once they get there?
Vasile: Going abroad doesn’t necessarily mean fucking for money. (bewilderment from Renata and Neagoe) But, as all Romanians always know everything, of course you know for sure what’s going on out there!
Mr. Neagoe: Yeah… (annoyed) over there nobody knows who you are, of course you can do whatever, your family and friends won’t find out. You take any job you can get in order to survive, then you call home from a loud bar to tell your folks how happy you are and how dreams really can come true. Girl, you have to get by! You’d better all leave! Actually, we’d be better off without all those people constantly complaining.
Vasile: No, I’ll come back, but trust me, not for people like you.
Mr. Neagoe: (sitting next to Vasile) My advice is to find some old fart, he dies quickly, you get his money and the job’s done. You have potential…
Vasile: Your breath stinks. Just another sign of your Romanian charm and the excellent Romanian hygiene… Dumb peasants!
Miss Renata: Please stop fighting… I’m opening the window. It’s so hot in here! I can’t breathe. (she opens the window)
The orchestra
loud noise
water running
flushing toilet
brushing teeth
scratches
screaming
flashes of light.
Train station
(voice/plasma TV)
Commercials and announcements for CFR (Romanian National Railway Company in Hungarian.) (…)
(…) Mr. Neagoe looks around him, annoyed. He curses. A man who doesn’t speak passes, leaving icons, key chains and pens to sell on the seats next to Renata and Vasile, and on Neagoe’s briefcase; he throws them on the floor, annoyed and swearing, thinking that he wanted to take away his briefcase.
The train changes directions in order to leave the station.
Edition 2015-2016
gallery: Three productions of three texts by Romanian Fabulamundi’s playwrights at Short Theatre (Rome)
The thirteenth edition of Short Theatre festival hosted the stage presentations of three texts by three Romanian Fabulamundi's
Press review: Three Romanian Fabulamundi’s playwrights at Short Theatre (Rome)
This year, Short Theatre festival hosted the premieres of three texts by as many Romanian Fabulamundi Playwriting Europe's authors:
Gallery: Antisocial by Bogdan Georgescu in Barcelona (Sala Beckett)
The mise en espace of Antisocial by Bogdan Georgescu was presented on 13th of July at Obrador d’estiu
Journal: Bogdan Georgescu at Sala Beckett
Here we publish the journal written by Bogdan Georgescu after his experience at Sala Beckett (Barcelona) in December.
Review: Bogdan Georgescu at Sala Beckett
Here we publish the review of “Antisocial”, the stage presentation written by Bogdan Georgescu, stage at Sala Beckett.
Gallery: Antisocial by Bogdan Georgescu at Sala Beckett
We publish some pictures of "Antisocial" by Bogdan Georgescu. The stage presentation has been presented at Sala Beckett
Video: Bogdan Georgescu at Sala Beckett
The romanian author Bogdan Georgescu has been invited at Sala Beckett/Obrador Internacional de Dramatúrgia (6-13 December 2015 –
