Voices From Romania -- `Mad Forest' Reflects On A Revolution That Deposed A Despot

In 1989 the leading British playwright Caryl Churchill headed for Bucharest, Romania, with director Mark Wing-Davey and 10 student actors.

Their mission? To collect material for a timely play about the Romanian people, who had just ousted and assassinated their despotic leader Nicolae Ceausescu and ostensibly ended a brutal 44-year reign of Stalinist communism.

The visit lasted barely a week. But the interviews and observations gathered by the group were the raw material for "Mad Forest," a provocative, unsentimental look at Romania before, during and after that December 1988 revolution. As mounted by Wing-Davey, the play scored a resounding success in London, New York and Berkeley, Calif.

Now Northwest theaters are getting the chance to bite into Churchill's meaty script. This week, The Empty Space Theatre opens "Mad Forest" at Fremont Palace under the direction of Seattle newcomer Dan Farmer. (The run starts Wednesday, and ends June 5. Call 547-7500 for details.) In July, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland unveils its own "Mad Forest," which runs through October.

To give the Empty Space show an authentic Eastern European flavor, Farmer and his 11-member cast have immersed themselves in Romanian history, culture and politics. Debbie Frockt, the dramaturge, compiled a thick study packet with a map of Romania, historical materials, and clippings about the December revolution and its ambiguous aftermath. (Though the government is no longer communist by name, former communist officials run it.)

James Augerot, a professor of Slavic linguistics at the University of Washington, gave the actors tips on Romanian pronunciations. UW drama student Thea Merkaufer shared her story of fleeing Romania before the revolution. Andrei Codrescu's book "The Hole in the Flag," an account of the author's visit to his native Romania after the fall of Ceausescu, and a German-made video documentary, "Requiem for Dominique," circulated among the ensemble.

But Churchill's imaginative theatricalism, honed in her acclaimed earlier works like "Cloud Nine" and "Top Girls," goes beyond boilerplate docu-drama. And though the writer's leftist political sympathies are well-known, her play forgoes agit-prop for a clear-eyed portrait of Romanian lives.

"There's the main story here about two Romanian families, one working-class and the other upper-class," notes Farmer, a recent transplant from Chicago. "And the middle part of the play, `December,' comes right out of interviews with people about what they experienced during the revolution.

"But there are also elements of fantasy and allegory, in scenes where the actors play an angel, a priest, a vampire, a dog. Churchill introduces a concept, and then takes a magical realist turn to let you examine it from a different point of view."

Cast member Stevie Kallos notes that the actors, who play roughly five roles apiece, are most challenged by re-creating the "cult of silence" perpetuated in Romania for decades. "The hardest thing for us Americans to understand," she reflects, "is the level of paranoia and politics that seeps into everything about the lives of these people, including relationships with spouses and children."

Another aspect of Romanian life is echoed in much post-World War II Eastern European literature: fatalistic black humor. Farmer quotes a short poem by Romanian author Nina Cassian to illustrate: "I wake up and say/ `I'm through'/`God take pity on me'/ is my second thought, and then/ I get out of bed/ and live as if/ nothing had been said."

While "Mad Forest" offers a stark look at the harsh realities of the Romanian psyche, it isn't devoid of lighter moments. "It's not totally bleak," assures Farmer. "You get the feeling there is some resiliency in these people. They weren't broken without redemption. Churchill's too smart to do a play about revolution and make it a dirge."

But her play does raise some troubling questions that have haunted many Romanians. Of special concern is who actually engineered the Romanian uprising, and whether the new regime was just a kinder, gentler but equally corrupt clone of the old.

"I think Churchill is very pessimistic about any order that comes directly out of the collapse of a police state," suggests actor David Pichette. "In Russia, Poland, Yugoslavia, there doesn't seem to be a smooth transition from 50 years of mind-destroying totalitarianism to open democracy."

Farmer, however, thinks the play transcends geography and topicality: "The Romanians have a saying that goes, `A change of leadership is the joy of fools.' Americans also get excited about the idea of change, but then don't take responsibility to make sure it happens.

"I'd like to see `Mad Forest' produced after every presidential election. If a play like this affects people, it's because it's true. And the truth never goes out of style."