Interview by Ioan Big for zilesinopti.ro, published in December 2021
Cassandra and DUAL, a performance about friendship, are two of the truly special events from the performing arts sphere that premiered in Bucharest in 2021. Both are directed by LETA POPESCU, an extremely original and innovating director, who has contributed in an essential way to nuancing the meaning of ”theatre d’auteur” in the last few years in Romania.
So, in the end, the fact that you chose to talk about friendship now is somehow also a consequence of your own feelings and experience…
Yes. I do this, generally. I mean, 90% of the time, my shows come from my personal life. That doesn’t mean that I make an autobiographic theatre, but that I use theatre to understand the effects of a certain moment from my life, be it recent, be it from my childhood, be it semi-recent, let’s say, so from the last few years. I find in myself things that unsettle me, friendship, love, betrayal, break-ups, things inherited from our parents… and I try to express them through theatre. I’m a selfish director, I would say… in the end. I would label myself as a selfish director because […] read the interview…
Interview by Andreea Mihalache for dailymagazine.ro, published on November 2nd 2021
3 ways I see the future of theatre in Romania
If I look at the new generation of directors (not my generation, because we’re no longer beginners), I see a future with a stronger attitude in the performance arts. I see directors with a new desire, satiated with classicism, with political, with aesthetical, with ideology, who are trying to combine them, maybe. I feel they’re more impertinent. I hope they’ll be a lot more impertinent than us, because there is a need of a new impertinent generation, like the ”dramAcum” generation. We are the generation riding the wave started by dramAcum. We are a generation of independent theatre, of collective creations. That wouldn’t have happened without dramAcum (Bucharest), without […] read the interview…
Interview for pentruurban.ro, published on July 16th 2021
Your CV and the press releases about your shows almost never mention the awards you won or the recognition you received. Other that the reaction of the audience, how important is to you the feedback from your colleagues or theatre specialists?
The feedback from my colleagues is very important in my case, but not from any colleague. I have certain colleagues that I talk to about theatre, people who have their own searches. And it’s a mutual thing to follow what the others are doing and to talk about it. I really love to sit with colleagues-friends and dissect our shows. I don’t mention the awards because I don’t find them representative when you’re perpetually changing, becoming, searching. The award is a momentary confirmation. You receive a UNITER prize for a show. That doesn’t mean you’ll keep doing that type of shows for ever. I can’t present myself to the world with a moment that I could even deny at some point in the future. [..] Read the interview…
Interview by Irina Wolf for Theatrescu.com, published March 15th 2021 in German here, and in English here.
Are you making shows about your life?
No, I’m not making shows about my life, I don’t want to leave that impression. The artistic and the personal are connected for a lot of artists, that’s nothing new. In fact my life has always been a quiet one, I’m actually a conventional woman, sometimes conservative. But my mind isn’t. I believe our minds are the only place for freedom, and in my case, a conglomerate of contradictory sensations in my mind leads to all these projects, shows being born.
Read more…
Published in March 10th 2021 on the YouTube channel of Reactor Cluj
We are talking about how we’ve been experimenting at Reactor over time. Seven directors talk about themselves and about others and tell you about their own experiment and research laboratories. The event is part of the focus on artistic experiment and research organized inside Retrospective 7, the program that brings into discussion the main directions Reactor has had in its first 7 years of existence, and can be watched here.
Filmed at The Butchers’ Bastion inside the Târgu Mureș Citadel (3g HUB & Teatru 74), in 24 and 25 January 2021
Directors Leta Popescu and László Bocsárdi talk, during the event DIALOGUE BETWEEN GENERATIONS, about the artist’s inner and stage universe. The event DIALOGUE BETWEEN GENERATIONS aims to start a series of conversations between theatre professionals. The themes are seen as points of intersection in the work of the two directors and as starting points of the debate. However, the real purpose of the event is initiating a free dialogue.
See the video here
Published on January 15th during the Ro.Drama project on the YouTube channel of The Liviu Rebreanu Company, The Târgu Mureș National Theatre
The conversation with Anca Hațiegan watched here and it touches the following themes: the beginnings of cult theatre inside the Romanian territory; the first acting schools on the Romanian territory; defining personalities marking the beginnings of cult theatre inside the Romanian territories.
The conversation with Miruna Runcan watched here and follows the themes: the beginnings of cult theatre in the Romanian territories; the establishment of the first national theatres; the Romanian playwriting from mid-nineteenth until mid-twentieth century.
Conversation with Daniel Chirilă, published on July 6th 2021 on the Frilensăr YouTube channel.
Interview by Zoltán Gálovits for the magazine Játéktér, issue 1/2019, published in print and online in Hungarian here aici and in Romanian here
Do you think there would be better chances to be less afraid if theatre was more open, if there were more communication between theatre and audience?
In short, right now I can say that yes, I strongly believe that the world would be better if the theatre were better. Theatre can be a forum for ideas. A platform for dialogue and debates. Theatre should be connected to the community, not just through performances, but also through adjacent activities: meeting, festivals, conferences, viewings, accessible archives and libraries. Theatre is and should stay a place that says “Open. Non-stop”. Not time-wise, but thinking-wise. Read more…
The present-day Romanian public sphere is full of controversial subjects, worthy of being debated on stage. In the third episode of the Scena.ro podcast we are trying to find out what millennials are bringing to theatre and how they see Romanian society nowadays. Our guests are two members of the millennial generations, the director Leta Popescu and the actor and playwright Gabriel Sandu. Listen to the interview…
Interview by Irina Nechit for Chisinau Journal, published on October 8th 2018
Were theatre doors closed to you in the beginning?
I didn’t find any closed door anywhere, especially because in Cluj I worked while attending college, I had a lot of assistant director practice in theatres, I participated in workshops or did volunteering for different events. In other words, I opened my own doors, by being a pretty active person. Read more…
Interview by Petro Ionescu on LiterNet.ro, published in March 24th 2017
How would you describe the Romanian dramatic literature in a few words?
Mindful of the everyday, first of all. Which it should be. I don’t find anything extraordinary or grandiose here. The Romanian dramatic literature reflects, in my mind, the Romanian contemporary theatre. Sometimes brilliant, sometimes comical and light, other times poor, a lot of times balanced and respectable, but without too many expectations. Like everywhere else… […] read more…
Interview by Cristina Modreanu in Scena.ro, issue no. 36, published in February 2017
As young theatre creator awarded the UNITER debut prize…
Stop! I want to make a little clarification here (too) about this award, won absurdly and by mistake. The award was given to the performance Parallel, who had two actresses and two directors. One of the actresses didn’t have an acting degree (Kata Bodoki Halmen), and one of the directors (Ferenc Sinkó) wasn’t a beginner. That’s how Lucia Mărneanu (actress) and I got to receive this award for a performance conceived a long time before by… Fero and Kata. Oh! And on my diploma it writes […] read more…
Interview by Emi Ostace for zi-de-zi.ro, published on November 28th 2017
How would you describe in a few words your work as theatre director and your artistic creations?
They are different from one project to the next, depending on what aim I decide on at the start. I give myself every time something to work on that only depends on me and then I am different both in rehearsals and in the final result. What doesn’t really change in my work is a certain discipline. And maybe because of this, a certain characteristic of my shows is that they’re clean and with a few clear lines […] read more…
Video interview for modernism.ro, published on September 27th 2017
“Creative professions: then and now” is a project of the program Cultural Training and takes place between July-September 2017. It is a project designed to promote creative professions, taking place online, and it is aimed mainly at young Romanians, ages 18-26, who aspire to be, or are young practitioners of the creative industries. See the interview …
Interview with Monica Andronescu for yorick.ro, published on September 18th 2017
“For me, independent should mean experiment, so a research done by the artist who wants to say something to someone. And I think state theatres should have their own experimentation”. Read more…
Oltița Cîntec (coordinator)
The bilingual volume (Romanian-English) coordinated by Oltița Cîntec and edited by The International Theatre Festival for a Young Audience from Iași, in partnership with AICT.RO, was published in 2016, at the Timpul Publishing House. It is an important book about theatre creators. It comprises of the life and career routes of theatre directors who debuted after the year 1990: Radu Afrim, Geanina Cărbunariu, Catinca Drăgănescu, Eugen Jebeleanu, Bogdan Georgescu, Cristi Juncu, Radu-Alexandru Nica, Theodor Christian Popescu, Leta Popescu, Bobi Pricop. Read more…
Video interview for Transilvania Culturală, published on July 3rd 2016
Call it Art! begins with an audience interaction, by inviting them to express their preference for one of the six works of contemporary art exposed over aquariums filled with coloured liquid, yellow, purple, blue, orange, green and red. At the same time, we are watching a lecture about contemporary art and Marcel Duchamp or Damien Hirst, a stand-up comedy performance, an instance of the church taking a stand against contemporary art, interviews with plastic artists, an auction for two contemporary artworks, every scene being played with a lot of humour by the five actors. See the interview…
