Short Political Theatre • 2

A short new play directed and presented at Southwark Playhouse in March 2020 part of Directors’ Cut showcase.

The [political] WHAT:

• 1989: A Voice by Angie Salter performed by Maria Balasoiu

Based on a spoken personal account shared with the younger generation, a short retelling of how it felt being part of the Romanian revolution in 1989 and what led to it.

The [political] WHY:

How can you convey on stage the spirit of a revolution, the dreams, desires and the objective reality on the ground that possessed many people to risk their lives to face-off with a brutal regime? How can you convey more than one dimension to relate such spirit without becoming one-sided? That, particularly to an audience neither familiar nor necessarily impressed by revolutionary political change in a country where the topic is removed from social debate and discourse.

The directorial approach found the ‘political and revolutionary spirit’ in the blurring of the line between ‘then’ in the past and ‘now’ in the present, both introduced gradually through a set of didactic yet personal Polaroid snapshots, the actor presented to the audience. Mixing together personal experience with objective history in regard to the main sequence of events that defined the Romanian revolution, the reality of the violence, the sadness, the elation, the solace experienced were show on stage as part of a possible ritual performed around the presence of a candle.

For whom the candle burns? …and for what? – was the question put to the audience to underline the sacredness of human sacrifice in death. The desired answer being: for the struggle of ‘the people’ that believe in change for the better. However, a climactic scream full of angst and realisation, formulated a second objective question that prefigured both the post-revolutionary malaise and sobering up of the ritual on stage: What will change?

Soundtrack