An Interview with Mr. Horia Gârbea – Playwright, dramaturg, translator, Bucaresti, Romania
Horia Gârbea – Born 1962 in Bucharest, Romania. Civil engineer, PhD. Many of Gârbea`s literary books were published after the Romanian Revolution (1989): poems, short stories, three novels, criticism, and 16 theatre plays. He translated also into Romanian language, many plays by: W. Shakespeare (13 plays, sonnets), Corneille, N. Machiavelli, Dario Fo, Eduardo de Filippo, Marivaux, etc. He got many literary prizes. He is the president of Bucharest-Poetry, part of the Writers Union of Romania. He is editor-in-chief of Luceafarul de Dimineaţă, a monthly literary magazine.
Ivanka Apostolova Baskar: You are one of the most eminent translators of Shakespeare works in Romania, apart from your personal experience – what is the difference between an artistic-craft obligation to make an excellent dramatic translation versus to create a dramatic work based on Shakespeare’s characters and themes and to make a theatrical performance from the perspective of a playwright?
Horia Gârbea: Since I translated 13 of Shakespeare`s plays, I feel him and his characters very close to myself. I also translated a play by Normand Churette, Les Reines, in which the characters are six of the queens of Shakespeare. Such experiences were often done because Shakespeare`s spirit is everywhere in humankind. All situations we live in were written in Shakespeare`s plays or poems. If an author understands that, it is simple to expose his own Shakespeare. Of course, we, poor mortals, can expose and use only a part of Shakespeare`s amplitude and complexity.
IAB: At the extraordinarily programmed 13th International Theatre Days in Cluj in 2024/Festival by National Theatre Cluj, Romania, we also had the opportunity to see a chamber play directed by talented young director Antofie Tudor – CESAR’S LAST LOVE based on your dramatic text? What do you think of his reading and mise-en-scène of the very play?
HG: I was very glad to observe that the stage director and the actors understood my intentions very well. They also extended my vision in the same spirit I imagined in that text. It was very good and the audience laughed a lot. You participated at a show with many theatre critics. But in a “normal” evening the public laughed all the time. That is a good sign. Because laughing and crying cannot be fake.
Photo Credit: Nicu Cherciu.
IAB: In your play CAESAR’S LAST LOVE, the characters in Shakespeare’s play are depicted as museum characters – exhibits, that come to life in interaction with contemporary characters, the characters reflecting the character of the professions that guide them to reality, namely the actors/actresses who act in the play.
HG: We know from Shakespeare that the world is a stage and all the people are actors. Even the comedians are actors, and the actors-characters that they play are also actors, and so on; but the actors are also normal men and women. They act as they live and live as they play. I spend a part of my life in theatre. Not so long as Shakespeare did. But anyway, I learned some things about that place and its people. My play is also about how theatre can fascinate “normal” people. Only one character is not an actress at the beginning. But she becomes. Theatre “haunts” people.
IAB: What makes Shakespeare relevant in this harsh contemporary age on the threshold of an existential impasse before the rise of AI technology, new ecological methods of reductions in theatre stagings and touring, the rise of the latest primitive feudalism, and relentless contemporary self-righteous individualism versus co-creative processes who relatives the role of the single author?
HG: Theatre is a team business but I think the author of the text or even the creator of a “libretto” for dance-theatre and so on will remain important. It is a tendency of the stage director to assume a lot: text creation, design, and music but I think it is not good for theatre because all of us are humans, not gods.
IAB: How important and relevant are the International Theatre Days (13 editions so far) in Cluj for Romanian theatre artists – for the international visibility of the latest contemporary theatre productions in Romania?
HG: Cluj National Theatre is one of the most relevant in Romania. But there are also fine theatres in Bucarest, Timisoara, Iași, Craiova and also in Chișinău (Republic of Moldova). It is very good that Cluj National Theatre invented this kind of Festival to show itself to foreign experts. I think other theatres could have such an experience. Because there are many performances in our country, many performances to show, and the conditions are better on their own stages than on a tour.
IAB: As a playwright, theatre critic, writer, translator – how do you read the artistic, programmatic, cultural-political conditions in contemporary theatres, independent theatre scenes, festival structures in Romania, today?
HG: Now, 35 years since our Revolution, the theatrical landscape is huge and very complex. There are big stages, great troops and also pocket-theatres with 30 or 35 places for the audience. I was myself manager of a theatre without actors (they were selected by a casting for each play) and we had two halls: 62 and 66 places. Money was a problem for every theatre, starting from Shakespeare`s time. But this art remained alive despite the lack of money or even the pests (pandemics).
Photo Credit: Nicu Cherciu.
IAB: In your opinion – in terms of contemporary European theatre, what is the place, role, quality, impact of Romanian contemporary/current theatre?
HG: Is hard to evaluate such an impact. Anyway, I think we have to do more to make our theatre be better known in the world. That`s why festivals as in Cluj National Theatre are very important.
IAB: In retrospect – what was happening and what was changing in reality back and forth, theatrically in Romania – in the 80s, versus the 90s, versus the 2000s, versus the 2010s, versus the last decade of 2020 – from your point of observing, precepting?
HG: After 1989 censorship disappeared. That was a major thing we lived and I am happy I was only 27 years old then. In art, there is no “progress” as in science. Technical things changed (video etc.), but basically, the theatre remained the same: all it is about emotion created by people “living” in front of other living people.
IAB: What do you foresee – what will be the future of theatre in Romania, the Balkans, in Europe, in the world – in 20 or 30 years?
HG: Unfortunately our future is now very unpredictable. Not only in theatre. I am worrying about events that could provoke a gap between people and the arts. I hope it will not be like this but who knows. Anyway, independent of the fate of Hamlet, it will always exist a Horatio “to tell the story.”
IAB: Thank you very much dear Horia Gârbea.
Bucharest/Skopje, 2025
This post was written by the author in their personal capacity.The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not reflect the view of The Theatre Times, their staff or collaborators.
This post was written by Ivanka Apostolova Baskar.
The views expressed here belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect our views and opinions.
