An Eastern current coming to the West, through Virgil Tănase’s stage adaptations

Authors

  • Ondine Plesanu Institut d’études Théâtrales, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris, France

Abstract

Abstract: The article An Eastern current coming to the West, through Virgil Tănase’s stage adaptations addresses the influences of two literary and theatrical cultures from the East (Romania and Russia) on the work of Virgil Tănase as a stage adapter in France. By scrutinizing the way in which the great Russian authors from the 19th century to the present day through the Soviet era establish themselves as a frame of reference for Tănase’s work as a stage adapter and by addressing the way in which this comes to fruition, within the stage adaptations created in France by the Franco-Romanian writer (often performed abroad too), a dreamlike aesthetic born in Romania in the 1960s, the study will show that Virgil Tănase, also known as a translator, managed to create a scenic poetics in which the words are at the service of the melody just as the scenography is at the service of the theatrical metaphor. By highlighting the ontological scope of the character and especially the actor, the stage adaptations developed by Tănase from canonical works of Eastern and Western literature finally converge towards a common goal, representative of his writer’s gesture: all aim to awaken in spectators their freedom to think and create, to revive each person’s faith in the fulfilment of their vocation, like the Proustian narrator of the novel In Search of Lost Time.

Author Biography

Ondine Plesanu, Institut d’études Théâtrales, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris, France

ONDINE PLESANU is a young researcher studying at the Institute for Theatre Studies (IRET) of Sorbonne Nouvelle University. Her present research focuses on the transposition, in the stage adaptations of the 21st century, of the anti-modern comic style used by Flaubert and Proust. She was a member of the editorial board of the university journal Traits-d’Union from 2021 to 2023 and lecturer in Documentary Research Methodology for the masters of the Sorbonne Nouvelle since 2022. Her latest article “Lady d'Arbanville in the Côté de Guermantes by Christophe Honoré. From sacralization to disillusionment” will appear in June 2024 in the journal Théâtre. In parallel with her scientific research, Ondine Plesanu wrote and directed two plays : Les canards sauvages (2019) and La jungla del amor (2020), performed in Parisian theaters (La Croisée de Chemins, Darius Milhaud, etc.) with her Compagnie Dis-Si-Métrique.

Published

2024-07-27

How to Cite

Plesanu, O. (2024). An Eastern current coming to the West, through Virgil Tănase’s stage adaptations. Studia Universitatis Babeș-Bolyai - Dramatica, 69(1), 9–27. Retrieved from http://dramatica.ro/index.php/j/article/view/301