I’m interested in young people and their relationship with society, parents, teachers, the way they grow into a person, from childhood and all the way to adolescence. My characters rarely have more than 18 years, and when they do, they are the parents. I write so I can better understand myself and those around me. Death is always present in my plays. Sometimes, when she doesn’t strike, she is there just sniffing around. I think about a story for years and I usually write the play in four or five days.
Gabriel Pintilei was born on 30 June 1978. In 2000 he graduates the University of Arts “G. Enescu “, Iasi, Faculty of Theatre, Acting section. Since 2001 he is employee actor in Odeon Theatre Bucharest.
In 2004 he wrote the play Elevator, which was staged in Very Little Theatre, Bucharest, Monday Theatre at Green Hours, Bucharest, Leti Theatre, Prague, (Czech Republic), Teatro Taborda, Lisbon (Portugal), New Diorama Theatre, London, Buenos Aires, Argentina. As a reading performance it was presented in New York, USA and Torino, Italy. Elevator was published in the volume “DRAMACUM 2”, Publishing House Dacia, Cluj Napoca.
In 2006 Pintilei wrote Tlicked which was staged in 2010 at Odeon Theatre, Bucharest. In 2007 he wrote the monologue Little Things, in 2011 the play Mrs. Deleanu, in 2011 the play Sun Alley and in 2015 Keratin. He wrote also scripts for the following movies: Elevator (2007, directed by George Dorobantu), A Rare Shade (2008, directed by Ivo Baru), co-script writer of the short film made in Bruxelles, Boxed In, in 2012, Bypass (2013, directed by Napoleon Helmis).
Awards:
Elevator received National Playwright Contest dramAcum 2 Award in 2004 and Best Romanian New Play at Romanian Drama Festival, Timisoara, in 2007 for the production of Leti Theatre in Prague.
Tlicked received National Playwright Contest dramAcum 3 Award in 2006.
In 2009 Gabriel Pintilei was among the winners of the contest for short stories “A sea of Words”, with The Clasp-Knife, event organized by IEMED (Institut Europeu de la Mediterrania) Barcelona, with the support of Ana Lindh Foundation.
Theatre works
2004 / Elevator, first staged: January 22, 2005; published in: April 25, 2005
2006 / Blifat, first staged: September 23, 2010
2011 / Sun Alley, first staged: May 8, 2012
Blifat (Tlicked)
It’s hard to tell the action from Tlicked. It is as if someone would ask you what you did yesterday. And you answer:
“Well, nothing special. I stayed in the house all day. Being Saturday, I awoke as usual, at 10-11. It was everyone home. I ate something. As usual, problems related to the small apartment space. It’s hard to live five people in three rooms … I watched a little TV, computer, I quarreled with my parents, as usual, the night came and I slept … Nothing special …
Well … It would be something unusual to note though … ”
This is what Tlicked is about. About that “something unusual”, almost unnoticeable, which appears in the most ordinary day of your life, but that can change your destiny.
Aleea Soarelui (The Sun Alley)
The “Sun Alley” play was born of the endless admiration that I feel for Paul Guimard’s “Le Havre Street” novel, Thomas Brussig’s novel – “Sun Alley”, and Isabel Coixet’s movie, “My live without me”. For years, I wondered if I could weave together these three stories. This is how my play was born, an emotional story about a group of teenagers that live on the same street, a girl that takes photos of the same street corner, every day, at the same hour, for two months and a mysterious girl, that crosses the Sun Alley at the same day, at the same hour, at 14:07. A play about hazard, fatality and love.
Keratine (Keratins)
Keratine started out as a comical exercise, in a single act, about the black market of human hair. Step by step, the action got to me and it transformed in a three-act play, in which drama started to appear, under the comical, those two coexisting in a way that I never could have imagined from the beginning. The story is simple, “classical” : a couple borrows a huge sum from a pawnbroker and can’t pay him back on term. The girl’s route interested me the most, her fall being abrupt and surprising. A feminine variant of the american “Breaking bad” TV Show’s protagonist.
– Extracts from Elevator –
Scene XIV
She: I can’t make love but at least you can tell me what’s it like. What is it like to make love?
He: Cool.
She: Save your “cool”! Honest!
He: What would you like me to say?
She: I don’t know. What do you begin with?
He: What do you begin with?
She: Yes, you know what. How old were you when you first screwed a girl?
He: 13. A neighbor. The brad was a student. My mother was away and she dropped by to borrow a cassette – Doors – first this thing then that… (she interrupt him)
She: You mean she was in college?
He: Well, yes, she was 19.
She: Was she pretty?
He: O.K. I’ll give her that.
She: What a… How was it? Did she come straight to fuck you or…
He: I don’t think so. She’d come for the cassette, but as my mother was not in… we had a drink… we got to bed telling this and that and… (she interrupts him)
She: She was so… and you so little?
He: Yeah. Since it’s she who wanted it.
She: And then?
He: Well, then she left for Denmark.
She: So, what does she feel?
He: She feels great.
She: How? Does she moan, cry? Does she say anything, that is, do you feel like saying anything?
He: Sometimes yes, some…
She: And what do you feel?
He: You feel great.
She: How?
He: Well, it itches.
She: And then you spew it.
He: Yes.
She: When?
He: About two minutes.
She: Only two?
He: (hesitatingly) Not quite, it depends…
She: What do you mean?
He: I mean it took me four minutes.
She: Usually it takes…
He: Usually? Me…?
She: Yes.
He: I don’t know.
She: Does it last more with others?
He: Yes, they say there are some who take it to half an hour, but you need special training.
She: What’s that sucking?
He: Oh, come on…
She: Please, tell me!
He: That happened only once.
She: Did she swallow?
He: Part of it.
She: And the taste?
He: They say it depends on what you eat.
She: You or her?
He: You, of course…
She: So…
He: I don’t know. It has a lot of zinc, they say.
She: The sperm?
He: Yes.
She: That is, it tastes like metal?
He: Well, I don’t know, I didn’t do it.
She: I see… And you did not talk after that?
He: No, she had to go to school.
She: Cool. Listen, Mona told me there are guys who can stay like that an hour even.
He: (wisely) Those are yogis.
She: Do you have to touch the clitoris?
He: If you know where that is, it’s O.K.
She: How come? Don’t you know?
He: (embarrassed) Oh, yes… I mean generally. (switching to another topic) Listen, you don’t pee through the same…
She: (laughing) No.
He: Then how do you do it? I never figured it out?
She: Nothing much to say.
He: And it’s still part of…
She: It does, but it’s a different matter.
He: I always thought that it is the same place.
She: Did you lick a girl’s…
He: Yeah. Once, but I felt like throwing up when a hair got in my throat.
She: Fuck.
He: Yes, it’s…
She: But all in all, it’s great, isn’t it?
He: Yes.
She: I’m tired, I can’t fallow. (crouching next to him) I’m glad you told me. (pause) And is it true that women want to be hugged and caressed after that?
He: What?
She: That is, men hardly wait to go to sleep after…
He: I don’t know… I did it during the day.
She: What?
He: That is I didn’t try it at night.
She: I don’t get it. How many times did you fuck?
He: (hesitatingly) Five times. Actually five and a half.
She: Is Wanda the half?
He: Yes.
She: All in all, five times?
He: I’m only 18.
She: Are you shy?
Scene XV
He: Tomorrow is your birthday.
She: Yes.
Scene XVI
(They are both lying on the floor. He hardly sits up, shakes her up, listen to her heart beats, realizes she is dead. Crawls to the wall and leans)
Scene XVII
(Slowly, gradually, louder and louder we hear the rain pattering on the metal sheet. A calm, pleasant rain. He is sitting up against the wall – mouth open – eyes wide open, staring up.
She is lying at his feet. It rains nicely for 20 seconds later the lights go off. )
