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THE TRAGEDY OF MAN AS THEATRUM THEOLOGICUM (A DRAMATURG’S DIARY) more comical and untrue. “And this — at least from my viewpoint,” I tell him, “is caused by the text that already sounds archaic to our ears.” He has the masks — just experimental and not final faces, used to examine the behavior of the latex — put on, and as soon as they appear on the actors, everything changes. The text, for instance, is easily “understandable” and acceptable, since every word comes from the other side of time, and neither its old-fashioned nor its poetic qualities seem excessive. The mask strikingly alters the body image of Etelka Magyari: she finds refined, sustained movements and instantly senses that she must strive to create images. Well of course, as if this were the language of performance. FEBRUARY 4, 2020 To be an amateur: an unintentional gift. To play the amateur: a style. The amateur actor cannot play an amateur. Acting is only born of a very personal interpretation of amateurism: who is the amateur (actor, author, artist, etc.)? What is the true criterion of amateurism in an age when we long for the elemental and when civilian actors appear on stage and on film? Would amateurism be enfeeblement now, in our case? To discover the enfeebled in ourselves — would this be our actual task? Timisoara’s main square has fallen under the rule of the buskers. They are many, and it appears that it is all indeed organized — at least, it seems as if everyone knows when it’ll be their turn: at times, entire salon orchestras perform on the square or on one of its nearby side streets. It’s hard for us to work this way: Purcarete can only exist with open windows and the unceasing flood of music from outside makes concentration difficult, especially because at times the production’s musical samples also start up during the course of interpreting the scenes. The rehearsals proceed, incorporating the musical materials given to the sound engineer so far: without setting up the acoustical space, not one scene can proceed further. In reality, Purcarete is directing an opera — this provides the key to the production’s form. After rehearsals, they take us out to Recas*® to visit the noted winery and taste the wine. Dragos Buhagiar brings up his conservatory years and talks about the artists who exerted a major influence on him in Cluj: Sandor Mohy, Sandor Bardécz...*° The name of Istvan Szényi (not the painter of the Danube Bend region, he!) — who found his world in Bucharest and whose gorgeous daughter Julieta Ivanca Sz6nyi achieved a fine career as a film actor in Romania 59 Temesrékás in Hungarian. 1 Sandor Mohy (1902-2001): visual artist; Sändor Bardöcz (1962-2017): musical artist. It is worth noting, in case the reader has not guessed it, that the intimate and respectful * 245 +
