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Representing the Roma Experience on the Contemporary Romanian Stage: The Intersectional Lenses of Giuvlipen’s Anti-racist and Feminist Theatre Works

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The Palgrave Handbook of Theatre and Race

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Abstract

This chapter examines the staging of “the Roma question” in four recent productions by Giuvlipen, the first Roma theatre company in Romania dedicated to intersectional explorations of Roma identity formation. In conversation with critical works in Roma studies, Benea argues that Giuvlipen’s plays mobilize a twofold anti-racist and feminist agenda, exposing the multiple facets of the discursive racialization of the Roma, while tracing its effects in different historical contexts, from the Holocaust to contemporary forms of structural racism and social exclusion. The analysis concludes that the political labour performed by Giuvlipen’s theatrical discourse of self-representation lies in offering a provocative counter-narrative to the tropes that have long dominated the hetero-representations of the Roma in various media as an exoticized or vilified ethno-racial and cultural other.

The author would like to thank Mihaela Drăgan, actress, playwright, and co-founder of Giuvlipen Theatre Company, for her kind support in documenting this chapter.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Even though the exact number of the Roma victims of the Holocaust is difficult to estimate, historians have approximated that at least 500,000 and up to 1.5 million Roma perished at the hands of the Nazis (see, for instance, Hancock 1991, 20).

  2. 2.

    For recent analyses of such representations of the Roma in various media, see, for instance, the special issue of Third Text 22, no. 3 (2008) edited by Paloma Gay y Blasco, or the articles by Hadziavdic and Hoffmann (2017), Schneeweis and Foss (2017), Pușcă (2015), and Tremlett (2014).

  3. 3.

    For a survey of such contemporary developments in several European countries (Hungary, Romania, Spain, and France), see Drăgan (2019). For an account of recent developments in Roma theatre on the Austrian stages, see Grobbel (2015).

  4. 4.

    For an analysis of Roma slavery and emancipation in the Romanian principalities, see Achim (1998), especially chapters II and III.

  5. 5.

    Obviously, this manifold agenda raises different challenges pertaining to each of the three categories mentioned by Drăgan—not only in point of building diverse and responsive audiences, but also securing the material infrastructures for their projects. Positioning itself on the frontlines of such a threefold critique is no small feat for an independent theatre company which faces various limitations in obtaining the funding, the spaces, and the other resources that are vital to developing and producing their works. As Drăgan has repeatedly stated in interviews, one of the long-term goals of the company is to establish a state-funded Roma theatre, which will then take its long-awaited place among the otherwise surprisingly robust network of twelve ethnic theatres that have operated in Romania for several decades, consisting of nine Hungarian, two German, and one Jewish state-supported institutions (or separate sections within national theatres).

  6. 6.

    All subsequent quotes from this play as well as those from Corp urban and Kali Traš/Frica neagră are my translations.

  7. 7.

    All quotes from Corp urban and Kali Traš/Frica neagră are transcriptions from the performances.

  8. 8.

    Also bearing witness to the Roma Holocaust is the exhibition organised in the lobby of the State Jewish Theatre in conjunction with the theatre show, entitled Copiii nu uită … povestesc! Holocaustul romilor și povestea lui adevărată (Children do not forget … they tell the story! The Roma Holocaust and its true story). Curated by the historian Adrian Furtună, the exhibition consists of drawings, photographs, and archival material as well as interviews with survivors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania

    Diana Benea

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  1. Diana Benea
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Correspondence to Diana Benea .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Theatre and Performance, Goldsmiths, University of London, London, UK

    Tiziana Morosetti

  2. Department of Theatre and Performance, Goldsmiths, University of London, London, UK

    Osita Okagbue

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Benea, D. (2021). Representing the Roma Experience on the Contemporary Romanian Stage: The Intersectional Lenses of Giuvlipen’s Anti-racist and Feminist Theatre Works. In: Morosetti, T., Okagbue, O. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Theatre and Race. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43957-6_6

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