By Claudia Ciobanu
BUCHAREST, Aug 17 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – On a hot summer afternoon, two delicately framed women are pulling off a theatrical tour de force, playing out a real-life drama in a village courtyard close to Bucharest.
They are at the vanguard of a Roma revolution, a fightback – through art and activism – after centuries of oppression.
Their play, “Who killed Szomna Grancsa?”, is based on the true story of a Roma girl who committed suicide after her parents stopped sending her to school, and explores the many complex reasons behind the tragedy.
The actors – Mihaela Dragan and Zita Moldovan – each play several characters in her young life: the 17-year-old who killed herself, her parents, teacher, village priest, neighbours and the journalists who covered her burial.
Their theatrical approach is a direct challenge to the more simple version of events told on Romanian television – that a young woman died because her parents, from one of Romania’s traditional Roma communities, denied her an education.
The play instead explores the other daily pressures she had faced: anti-Roma racism in Romanian schools, rural poverty, women’s oppression in Romanian society at large.
“Don’t all women cry?” one female character asks rhetorically in a summation of the greater female lot.
The play is staged by Giuvlipen, a Roma feminist theatre company – a first for Romania – that was founded in 2014 by Dragan, Moldovan and director Mihai Lukacs.
The company members spoke to the Thomson Reuters Foundation on the sidelines of their latest play, which is a tough watch for any audience, Roma and non-Roma alike.
