a one man drama in English and Romanian

Reading Performance • Panel Discussion • Q&A

Written by Mike Phillips
Cast: Constantin Chiriac as ‘Victor’
Live piano: Diana Ionescu. Music by Satie, Debussy, Saint-Saens, Poulenc
Directed by Jonathan Banatvala

Click here to see images from this event.

Programme:

• Opening address by Professor Andrew Dewdney, Head of the Faculty of Arts and Humanity at London South Bank University
• Performance
• Panel discussion with Constantin Chiriac, Mike Phillips and Jonathan Banatvala, followed by a Q&A session with the audience, chaired by Mike Phillips.

Wednesday 22 November 2006, 19.30, Events Theatre, Keyworth Centre, London South Bank University

Your Feedback

Just a short note to say thank you for the evening. The discussions were just as revealing as the work and performance themselves. The RCC is all to do with excellent ideas and efforts. Bravo! - Iolanda

What a successful evening that was! I was delighted to see the great Constantin Chiriac on stage. - Lindsay

Thank you, for another thought-provoking evening. I had meant to leave early but I felt compelled to remain till the end. Thank you also for your hospitality. I look forward to further evenings, which I find always enrich me. - Kay

Thank you for this wonderful evening of theatre and debate. The play was heartfelt and well researched. I believe it has demonstrated fully that the image of ‘the migrant’, as seen in today’s media, is a myth. I thoroughly enjoyed hearing Mr Phillips (the author), Mr Chiriac (the actor), and Mr Banatvala (the director) discussing the show and the ideas behind it. I was also most pleasantly surprised by the presence of live piano music in the play. The chosen music fit the play perfectly, and the pianist, Diana Ionescu, was simply marvellous. - Mihai

It was splendid! Thanks! Please send more information on Sibiu International Theatre Festival and Sibiu European Capital of Culture 2007. I’d like to go there. - Richard

“Thank you very much for your excellent organisation of the event, which I thought was highly successful. I think it was a very good example of co-operation between organisations. Also the students were very keen to make links with Constantin Chiriac and the Sibiu Festival.” - Andrew

“Thank you for this theatre evening. The play was beautiful!” – Marius

Quotations from the play

“But the truth is that animals don’t understand
Our man-made boundaries
Their ignorance is complete and completely ultimate
The birds fly through the blue skies
Drifting like clouds
With absolutely no thought
For the ownership of airspace
Like those impudent fishes
Invading our waters whenever they like
Not to mention the insects
Spiders, flies, bugs of every kind
They crawl past the checkpoints
And customs officials – they have no respect”

“We are the inheritors
Of the oldest civilisation in Europe
Romania, you’ve heard of the Roman Empire
Our language is a refinement
Of Latin wisdom and our rulers
Carved their names in shining gold
And our church breathed the sweet air of the spirit
While our sculptors and poets and painters
Nurtured in immortal mountains
And sacred villages, sacred villages
Kept alive the pure flame of art
Despatching the fruits of our intellect
To Paris and Rome and everywhere else
That human beings vibrated
With sympathy for love and beauty
Listen to these names
Tzara, and Brancusi, and Eminescu
And Gheorghiu.
Oh yes, the foreigner says
I remember now
Romania
You are very cruel to children there”

“Frogs – Frogs - take the case of these INSOLENT batrachians
Monsieur Le Crapaud
If you ever have the necessity
Of addressing a French frog in polite terms
This is how you do it –
Monsieur Le Crapaud –
These frogs are extremely territorial
Each species of frog has been hopping
Over the very same patch of ground
For the space of several millennia.
In that pool over there
They are born
They hop out of it and across a patch of ground
To that pool over there
Croak Riddip Croak Riddip
Then they grow up they mate and they return
To the pool of their birth.
And if by some foolish mistake you build your house – build your house right there
Right there in the middle of their migration
They crawl right through the pipes
They climb up out of your toilet
They emerge from the taps
They hop slowly across the floor of your house
And out of the door
Without even looking at you
What could be more territorial than this
But a frog never never never
Asks to see your passport”

(©The Romanian Cultural Centre in London; text published by kind permission of the author.)

Identity, Migration, Cultural Capital

In the present context of the accession of Romania and Bulgaria to the EU in January 2007, and considering the way in which migration is currently regarded in the UK, this play tries to shed some light on the often-maligned migrant, to show who he might be, what his thoughts are, and what the issues of identity might be when someone moves permanently to a foreign country.

In this play, Mike Phillips set out to demonstrate that the question of open borders and migration can be viewed differently: not through alarmist stories in the media, but through an intellectual approach to the construct of borders, foreign-ness, cultural capital, and the meetings and clashes of ideas.

This evening of drama and discussion, in the setting provided by the Keyworth Centre of the London South Bank University, was an excellent alternative to the tabloids’ loud headlines.

‘Credeti ca stiti cine sunt, dar de fapt’ had its premiere in 2005, during the International Theatre Festival in Sibiu, Transylvania, Romania, when it was given a studio reading by Constantin Chiriac. Subsequently the play was published in a Romanian translation by Ramona Mitrica in the cultural magazine ‘Timpul’ based in Iasi (nr.7-8, July-August 2005, www.timpul.ro).

Special thanks to: Jonathan Banatvala, Louise Biggs, Eliot Bradshaw, Constantin Chiriac, Hannah Crouch, Andrew Dewdney, Iosefin Florea, Toby Green, Miranda Hutchens, Diana Ionescu, Daliada Koehne, Ramona Mitrica, Mike Phillips, Tudor Prisacariu, Elisabeth Ratiu, Nicolae Ratiu, Mihai Risnoveanu, Rachel Sidery, Lizzy Sturgeon, Jessica Thanki

Organised by the Romanian Cultural Centre in London (RCC) and London South Bank University (LSBU)
Sponsored by The Ratiu Foundation UK and RoExport Ltd.