PLAYBOY
after THE PLAYBOY OF THE WESTERN WORLD
by John Millington Synge, adaptation by Nona Ciobanu
I want the performance to be floating in primitive essences. The barrel is the Matrix of this world. It will become a table, a chair, a hiding spot, a drum, a bath-tube, a counter, a manger. You drink from it, you sleep in it, you play it, you have a bath in it.
This world is full of contradictions and ambivalences, it is a world greedy for cruel events, a world that knows no half measures, it is a world in which love joins with murder and cowardice joins the real spiritual force.
Nona Ciobanu
National Theatre Bucuresti
produced by Toaca Foundation
1997
Directed by
Nona Ciobanu
Set design
Iulian Bălțătescu
Costume design
Dana Șipa
Original music
Cristi Ștefănescu
Stage manager
Andrei Dușe
Lights
Sandu Dobrogeanu
Foto Gallery
Cast
Christopher Mahon
Bogdan Talașman / Damian Oancea
Old Mahon
Șerban Pavlu
Michael James Flaherty
Damian Oancea / Bogdan Talașman
Margaret Flaherty (Pegeen Mike)
Andreea Bibiri / Ioana Flora
Widow Quin
Crina Matei
Shawn Keogh
Adrian Damian
Jimmy Farrell
Alin Panc
Philly Cullen
Cosmin Șofron
Sara Tansey
Antoaneta Zaharia
Susan Brady
Simona Mihăescu
Awards
Reviews
Playboy after J. M. Synge, is coherent, dynamic, clear cut and exceptionally performed. A multitude of imaginative and original ideas become entangled with delicate, yet effective suggestions, so that the stage overflows with expression and playfulness.
Maria Constantinescu
Romania Literară
The performance Playboy after J. M. Synge, is in its essence an enormous (huge) tragic laughter.
Anca Rotescu
Dreptatea Culturală
Nona Ciobanu is enthralled by the pathology of reality, of this world whose string are pulled by invisible, powerful demons. She is interested in Synge’s world deformations that is explored through the aesthetic practiced by her as an artist and by Toaca as well: an aesthetic of the synergies of dance, theatre, fine arts, music. And we should acknowledge Nona Ciobanu’s exceptional results. All the details become refined suggestions, her sense of humor constantly avoids the grotesque at the risk of remaining unnoticed by a superficial spectator. Iulian Bălţătescu’s set is minimal, multifunctional, and very much alive, as it were.
Victor Scoradeţ
Libertatea
Nona Ciobanu’s shows have the freshness of a story we already know, yet want to hear again, with the same curiosity and enchantment… This is an atavistic world, devoid of substance like an empty barrel. In Playboy after J.M.Synge, Nona Ciobanu teaches us a very bitter lesson, somewhat sweetened by the charmingly mythical atmosphere, by the ritualized processions, by the music and the set and also by costumes, which bring a dream like colorful sense of fantasy and simultaneously refer to perennial criteria, this world bewilders us with its picturesque quality.
Saviana Stănescu
Adevărul Literar