Bern, Brno, Bucharest and Berlin, and I’m now back in my home town near Brighton; It’s been a summer of B’s. It started with playing ‘Yes But No’ from the Maxim Gorki Theatre’s repertoire in Bern for the Auawirleben Theater festival, and then to the towering old communist city of Brno with ‘Roma Armee’ as part of the Divadelní svět Brno at Mahen Theatre. In both cities it rained profusely so any exploration outside the wings of the stage was a bit limited. Bern was beautiful and green, neat and very expensive and Brno felt like walking into the old 70s postcards they sold at the hotel.
BRNO
It was an early start standing in the echoey dome of Hauptbahnof station waiting for the train to roll in that will carry us the long journey to Brno. The day before, a dreaded dead Sunday in Berlin, I spent sitting in the tense waiting room of one of the only A&E’s open in Wedding in order to get antibotics and painkillers and all other concoctions with antiseptic numbing properties to treat the sudden tonsillitis and throat infection that had descended.
Slightly deliriously I prepared myself for the journey to the Czech Republic, a country where during WW11 90% of native Romani were killed under the Nazi’s and where forced sterilisation continued unchallenged up until the late 1980’s. In 2015 Amnesty International stated that the Czech Republic continued to uphold “Systematic discrimination” against its Roma population and that the “Czech authorities are violating the human rights of Romani children in schools across the country.” through their system of segregation.
The theatre in Brno was, in contrast to the dark exteriors of the buildings around, dripping with gilt and gold with plush velvet seats. Behind the stage the dressing rooms were lit with dull warm bulbs and decorated with old retro prints. In one of our dressing rooms was the picture of a naked ‘Gypsy’ woman, arms up to show her bushy armpits, with the caption ‘Who will solve the Roma problem… I probably won’t’. As at one point during the production I proclaim my pride for my “soft and velvety” underarm hair the painting became a topic of discussion among the cast. Was it blatant racism, with a naked exoticisised Roma woman yet again the only focus of our artistic representation? Was it racism because she was hairy, alluding to an untamed animal quality? Was it an empowering feminist statement about body hair? Was it by a Roma artist or a Gadjo? All these things caused us to debate the images intent and our wildly varying perceptions of it, and eventually I was vetoed from bringing it onto the stage as a protest.
The theatre in Brno was, in contrast to the dark exteriors of the buildings around, dripping with gilt and gold with plush velvet seats. Behind the stage the dressing rooms were lit with dull warm bulbs and decorated with old retro prints. In one of our dressing rooms was the picture of a naked ‘Gypsy’ woman, arms up to show her bushy armpits, with the caption ‘Who will solve the Roma problem… I probably won’t’. As at one point during the production I proclaim my pride for my “soft and velvety” underarm hair the painting became a topic of discussion among the cast. Was it blatant racism, with a naked exoticisised Roma woman yet again the only focus of our artistic representation? Was it racism because she was hairy, alluding to an untamed animal quality? Was it an empowering feminist statement about body hair? Was it by a Roma artist or a Gadjo? All these things caused us to debate the images intent and our wildly varying perceptions of it, and eventually I was vetoed from bringing it onto the stage as a protest.
The show was a success with the audience, receiving up to five standing ovations and we headed back on the long (very long because our train stopped for 4 hours in Prague) scenic journey to Berlin. I was glad to be back in the hubbub of our city.
BUCHAREST
Next stop was Bucharest. Hometown of our one and only Mihaela Dragan, the Romanian Roma actress and playwright, who founded the word for feminism in the Romani language, Giuvlipen, and is currently in residence at the Royal Court in London.
Romania’s history, and present day relationship, with the Roma is anything but pretty. Having been enslaved there for five centuries, up until as late as 1864, the modern day Roma continue to fight with the stigma it left, while being subjected to systematic structural and cultural racism. Despite a 2007 “Commission for the Study of Roma Slavery” recommending the creation of a Roma museum, research center, and the building of a memorial dedicated to Roma slavery, there currently stands no national acknowledgment of the persecution of the Roma. In the gulf of this silence to own and acknowledge its historic atrocities, the oppression and marginalisation of the Romanian Roma, the biggest Roma community in Europe, is anything but history. So it felt like a big deal to be brought by the European Roma Institute for Art and Culture (ERIAC), a female fronted, transnational and European-level organization for the recognition of Roma arts and culture, to play in the Bucharest National Theatre. A huge 900 seated building in the centre of Bucharest that has never before (to our knowledge) allowed a Roma production on its stage.
Another early start, this time fleeing the Berlin heat wave and again rising from my sick bed (Glandular Fever not tonsillitis as it turns out) to meet my now bronzed and summer ready colleagues in the bleary eyed dawn light of Schoenfeld airport. Unbelievable as it seemed, Bucharest was hotter than Berlin. Simmering. Driving through the city it morphed quickly between beautiful old buildings and towering post communist edifices, edged with the sense of a rush for westernisation plastering over history. Our hotel was pretty amazing as tour hotels go, and luxury felt truly reached when the breakfast buffet had the option of prosecco. I sat beneath the blue chandeliers, on the diamante studded seats, surrounded by the other guests, Saudi Aribians veiled and covered in dishdashas and abayas, eating from dishes overflowing with freshly replenished produce and felt a growing sense of unease at the decadence. Opposite our white washed walls and booming motivational breakfast music you could see the street outside; clogged with traffic and silhouetted against the huge carcass of an empty casino- one of many abandoned buildings across the city- a neon POKER light hanging from an empty entranceway, unlit.
As always with guest shows we arrived at the theatre around 12pm for soundchecks, a run through, a rushed lunch, make up, more soundchecks, a bit more make up and then a real run with the real people at 8pm.
Pre show ERIAC organised drinks and hosted speeches for the estimated 500 Roma community members and advocates they had invited. The glasses clinked under the heavy white staircases and golden light installations leading up to the vast red auditorium.
Pre show ERIAC organised drinks and hosted speeches for the estimated 500 Roma community members and advocates they had invited. The glasses clinked under the heavy white staircases and golden light installations leading up to the vast red auditorium.
The show, having been developed in Berlin with a mostly queer feminist cast, is undeniably a challenge for more traditional community members. However, the audience applauded almost every time Mihaela, our native Romanian and ‘mindj’ advocate, spoke and by curtains down they were on their feet to applaud us for four standing ovations.
The Theatre sold an estimated 150 seats independently, which may appear as a defeat to some, but actually felt like a triumph in the context. To bring this show to Romania is comparable to having black musicians play in a recently post abolition American south. You can’t expect to be welcomed with open arms. We are still fighting.
After the show I managed to catch some audience members outside the theatre and a young Roma actress told me the performance felt like a big step for the Roma in her country.
It felt good to occupy this huge space for ourselves; It felt important that we were there first, in our radical diversity, mapping this uncharted territory. Yes, it’s exhausting and exposing and emotional and thrilling and we’ve said it all before (this was our 36th public show) but we will keep saying it, keep filling ourselves with the power of it because every time we play it, it is the first time for the audience, the first punch. And as a community, our fight for recognition, for equality, even for basic human rights, is still a long way from being won.
