Just came home to Transylvania not long ago, and luckily I was in my hometown right when the Contemporary Theater Gathering, or more like a Festival, took place in the end of September. I’ve seen several Hungarian plays and some Romanian ones. Growing up in a Hungarian minority, Romanian was obligatory in school, and we all hated it, since we had no living experience with the language in a totally Hungarian-inhabited region. In high school, due to a teacher, I had truly traumatic experiences related to the language. I was humiliated, forced, and threatened to get kicked out of school if I didn’t speak and fulfill the expectations. (I rebelled for three years consecutively, then I realized that I needed to be the best; otherwise, I wouldn’t get admitted to the University, so I did. But the trauma stayed.) This experience influenced me even when I turned 30. I was still sweating and truly anxious speaking any other language which was not Hungarian. In time, I passed through these limitations and felt how thrilling speaking another language can be; it’s like looking into a bedroom's window from the street.
I am not in contact with the language, having lived abroad for more than 22 years, so I can’t even order food if I have to speak Romanian. But I understand quite well everything. So when I came home, I decided to see Romanian plays, just to test how much I remember and how I feel about it.
One of the plays I saw was “Lumea lui Frank,” written by Alexandru Popa, directed by Vlad Zamfirescu. The story explores the life and drama of a man -Frank - who has lost his long-term memory and is therefore unable to form new memories, reliving the exact same day, over and over again, for eternity. And of course, by the end, a traumatic event unfolds behind it.
To my greatest surprise, I could understand, and I was Frank, I was Jason, I was Grace, all the actors at the same time. And I was the play itself. As if trauma would mean to relive the same day again and again till eternity, even when outer circumstances have changed. And I was just staring, moved, because I had just experienced for a moment how great art IS a universal language and how it is capable of healing. It was a Romanian play after all.