Drahtseilakrobaten (Wire and Acrobats)

American theatre producer Lily commissions the young Romanian author Emil to write a new short play for a theatrical compilation entitled “Angry Voices from the Wild East”. He is supposed to deliver “true” insights into Romanian everyday life – of precisely the kind Lily’s audience and sponsors expect; the new poverty of post-Communism, corruption, the Mafia, violent prostitution, hopelessly shattered families – and all in no more than ten minutes. An absurd dialogue full of clichés and false expectations unravels between the two of them. At the end it appears that the young author has allowed himself to be bought. However, Emil wants to write an entirely different play, one which is brilliant and surreal – and which he actually manages to achieve:

An unrecognized artist wants to throw himself off a tower block in Bucharest live on camera in front of rubber-necking bystanders and bored policemen; a young woman dreams about Iceland and shoots her lover; a man hallucinates his father’s mummy into existence in order to finally settle things, a businessman gets his wife to give him a present of sex with another woman; two sisters offer an insight into their family tragedy and finally true love between two people is bloodily tested. In between the scenes are linked by clowns, magicians and acrobats hovering in the air above the stage.

The play’s subject is established in its extremely funny opening scene and Peca Ştefan – in common with his alter ego Emil – wants to record his own highly individual view of life: a high-wire act between unlimited freedom and social deracination.
Iris Laufenberg

Peca Ştefan was born in Târgoviste, Romania, in 1982. He is currently regarded as one of his country’s leading contemporary playwrights and is credited with reviving the Romanian theatrical scene. He studied dramatic writing at New York University and took part in the 2005 International Residency at the Royal Court Theatre, London. He has written over 20 plays, which have been translated into six languages and performed in numerous European countries and the USA. Peca is a founder member of the BLA Theatre Company and initiated the “Scrie o piesa” workshop for dramatic writing in Romania. His awards include the 2002 dramAcum Prize and the Prize for Innovation at the 2007 Heidelberg Stückemarkt. His play “The Sunshine Play” won the 2006 London Fringe Report Award for Best Relationship Drama.