The Public Consciousness of the Transition

Abstract

The decade following the Romanian Revolution, generally known as “the transition”, saw radical changes in the economic and social fabric of the country, with one apparent exception: the public theatre system. At the same time, the monopoly the winners of post-communism developed on the discourse about the transition and the traditional practices of cultural production delayed any artistic representation of that period for at least another decade.

The article tackles the issue of this delayed public reflection on the long-term effects of the transition, how the theatre managed to preserve its own oblivion to these effects, and how the independent theatre of a new generation of artists engaged, after the financial crisis of 2008-2011, in a public reckoning of the ongoing legacy of the transition.