We kindly invite you, together with your significant other, to Simona Maicanescu’s one-woman show, The Fever by Wallace Shawn, acted IN ENGLISH at Sala Media of The National Theatre on Sat, 13th of May at 20:00h. 80 min.
This will be the closing event of the British-Romanian Literary Week, which Prof. Lidia Vianu and Societatea Muzicala has organized in partnership with The Romanian Cultural Institute (ICR), The British Council, The National Museum of the Romanian Literature and the University of Bucharest.
Special guests will be the six British poets invited this year (Wendy French, Joan Michelson, Graham Mummery, Peter Phillips, Maggie Sawkins, Anne Stewart), Romanian poets, writers and other prominent cultural and Academia figures. And our sponsors, of course: Pepsi, Danone, Barilla, Vel Pitar, Friesland Campina, Caroli Foods, Bucovina, Mars, City Grill, Kandia, Nespresso, Scorseze Security – many public thanks to all of them!
Looking forward to affecting your minds and feelings,
The Fever
This powerful dramatic monologue, written between 1985 and 1990 but more relevant now than ever, is a fierce, forensic examination of social inequality and the links between the affluence many take for granted and the poverty and suffering that haunt the lives of millions.
Fever Pitch
A wealthy woman from New York travels abroad haunted by the endless paradox of economics. Some people get all while others get nothing, not even enough to survive. This Candide of our time is torn between two worlds, two realities: her own comfortable life, the values she was taught and everything she discovers within each poor country. She wanders and wonders, frightened by the simple questions she poses.
The humour is quirky and the questions – upsetting, no doubt. They make us all uneasy as they are removed from any leftist certainty, far removed from any doctrine, and yet so close to the daily landscape that we don’t wish to see anymore. Our trip through her memories and questions is The Fever.
Author: Wallace Shawn
Director: Lars Norén
Adaptation: Simona Maicanescu, Lars Norén
Lighting: Jean Poisson
Costume: Chatoon
Sound: Sophie Buisson
Artistic collaboration: Nelly Bonnafous, Bob Meyer
With: Simona Maicanescu (The Traveler)
Co Produced by: Le Nouvel Olympia – CDR de Tours
Théâtre de l’Espace – Scène Nationale de Besançon/Apocryphe Tendance
With the support of Athénée -Théâtre Louis Jouvet
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The American character actor and writer Wallace Shawn was born in New York City in 1943. He has excelled on stage, TV and film, garnering international recognition from acting in Woo- dy Allen’s Manhattan, Star Trek, Toy Story, and James Ivory’s The Bostonians and from his brilliant collaborations with director An- dré Gregory, including My Dinner With André, Vanya on 42nd Street, and Grasses of A Thousand Colors. Shawn has pursued a parallel career as a playwright and scriptwriter. His most well known works are My Dinner With André, Aunt Dan and Lemon, The Designated Mourner. Wallace Shawn received his second OBIE Award for The Fever.
The Fever is an attempt to state the obvious so that the obvious can finally be seen. In my view, injustice, and particularly economical injustice, still is the root cause of the rage which everyone feels all around them. The injustice is brutal, it’s astounding, and it’s everywhere, and it’s not hidden at all, but it’s still so upsetting that even the most enlightened of us can only glimpse it for moments at a time. (Wallace Shawn)
Lars Norén, born in Stockholm, is regarded by many as Sweden’s greatest playwright since Strindberg. His work is widely produced and celebrated in Europe. His best-known plays include Autumn and Winter, Blood, War, and Night Is Mother To The Day. Since 1993 he has directed for the theater, staging plays by
Shakespeare, Aeschylus, Ibsen, and Chekhov, as well as his own texts. He succeeded Ingmar Bergman at the head of the National Theater in Stockholm. He later ran Riksteatern, and since 2009 he has been working as the manager of Göteborg’s new theater, Folkteatern. With The Fever Lars Norén directs for the first time a
contemporary piece other than his own.
Simona Maicanescu was born in Craiova, Romania, where she performed under the direction of Silviu Purcarete, Lucian Pintilie, Tompa Gabor, and Andrei Serban. After performing in a French-Romanian production presented at the Avignon Festival, she was invited to perform in 1994 at Odéon Theatre in Paris, where she worked with André Wilms, Lukas Hemleb, and Jean-François Peyret. She then decided to move to France to continue acting. She has since performed in both French and English, with credits ranging from Norén’s War and Molière’s Tartuffe to the French TV series Engrenages and movies like Dante 01, Stowaways and Splice. The Fever marks Maicanescu’s first one-woman show.
The Fever is a monologue by Wallace Shawn, which I read while in New York City in 2004. Summer 2003 through winter 2005 – The opportunity to work with Lars Norén on his play War. A long journey that began in Paris and continued throughout Europe and Canada. Fall 2006 – At an international theater festival in Stockholm, the chance to present a work-in-progress version of Wallace Shawn’s monologue, directed by Lars Norén. Spring 2008 – Back in Romania, my native country: Listening to people, looking at the changing landscape. Observing the country’s new history after so many years of Communist trauma brought me back to Mr. Shawn’s Fever. November 2008 – In New York again, watching the presidential elections. Thrilled to meet Wallace Shawn and to gain insight into his text. Back to Paris, carrying the latest version of The Fever in my luggage. March 2009 – Wallace Shawn’s monologue, Fièvre, performed in French for the first time. I happen to be a child of Eastern Europe and a relentless traveler. Terminal 2F is often my gate of departure. Arrival: The stage – my home. Never-ending travels between two worlds: a country that was mine, now engulfed by capitalism, and the Western countries questioning their tired democracies. The more I travel, the more I see injustice and violence in the world, but also the strength of the human spirit to overcome. That is what I want to talk to you about – That’s my Fever. (Simona Maicanescu)