Gianina Carbunariu
Born in 1977, Gianina Cărbunariu came of age and trained as a director in postcommunist Romania. In 2002, after graduating from the National University of Theatre and Film in Bucharest, she co-founded dramAcun, a structure whose goal is to deeply change the world of Romanian theatre by focusing on local contemporary creations, against all forms of formal and ideological conservatism. It is in this context that she writes, at first for her own actors, two plays: Stop the Tempo, in which three youths, lost and lonely, decide to blow the fuses of all the nightclubs, supermarkets, and theatres of their town, and Kebab, about the European dream and the exile of Romania's young generations to Ireland. Those two aspects are representative of Gianina Cărbunariu's theatre, tough and uncompromising, oscillating between revolt and disillusionment. Shown in theatres all around the world, her plays offer an alternative look at modern Romania while also forcing us to think about western representations of progress and success. They may also be the beginning of a new political European theatre, originating from the East, which faces head-on the issues of the European model of community integration, identitarian closure, and collective action.
RB, April 2014
