Last Emperor
Category: Plays“I.L. Caragiale” National Theatre, Bucharest
“The Legend of the Last Emperor”/ Legenda ultimului imparat
The performance was on show in 2002-2003. The premiere took place on the 10th of October 2002. The staging was based on a version of The Photographer of His Majesty (The Last Emperor), written by the playwright himself. The initial play is included in a collection of plays titled The Last Emperor and published by Polirom Publishing House. In 2003 the performance was presented in the 10th edition of the International Theatre Festival held in Sibiu.
Stage direction and music: Alice Barb
Costumes and light design: Cătălin I. Arbore
Choreography: Roxana Colceag
Casting:
His Majesty – Claudiu Bleonţ
The Fool – George Ivaşcu
The General – Mircea Albulescu
The High Priest – Ion Lucian
The Adviser – Constantin Dinulescu
The Cook – Rodica Popescu Bitănescu
The Courtesan – Ilinca Goia
The Mother Queen– Carmen Ionescu
Courtier – Mihai Perşa
The Galloper– Ioan Andrei Ionescu
The Photographer – Georgian Ilie
The Beggar – Sorin Sandu
„The play starts from an authentic legend which Caligula voices. This legend has it that someday there will be a last emperor. He will conquer the whole world and foretell the second coming of Jesus. The authors endow the theme with an apocalyptic dimension and he approaches all the main issues of the 20th century and he establishes various relations among them.” Director Alice Barb
„Valentin Nicolau’s spirit of venture is hopeless. It kept him alive before 1989, making him richer in a certain sense of the word, it gave him strength and boldness after the Romanian Revolution when he founded Nemira, the publishing house he owns, and when he ran across new voices and new and challenging worlds, as provocative as the structure of his own self. Although dull and little lively, he is the possessor of many special experiences, he has roamed about all the corners and the high class salons to see man in a variety of hyposthasis, situations, lights and shadows, with dazzling glows and with a stunning stench of putrefaction. Step by step, such images began coming out of his mind, allowing him to put them down. This is how his plays were born. They came to life naturally, without needing a caesarian operation. They were doomed to be so: feverish, agile, with skilled dialogue, with love for stage. (…) You have a charming, subtle and multi-layer story on the one hand, a story told in the language of poetry. And you have the forms of pathological sheltered in the mind of a dictator, on the other hand. “The action takes place in the palaces of the powerful, where every instant is history and it must be photographed to last in eternity”, says the playwright. What he does not say is the amazing truth that his Majesty is growing. His crown is too tight, his shoes and clothes are too small, just like his bad, the throne hall has grown smaller and the palace itself is diminishing. Power doesn’t suit him any more, power is growing too small for him.” (…) (Marina Constantinescu, Pinocchio’s Nose, text printed on the brochure the audience could buy when going to see the play)
“The Legend of the Last Emperor is a step taken to the world of philosophical parables and to the realm of the tragic-comical, that realm where the classical themes of universal dramaturgy meet. Some critics have hastily focused on the Shakespearian king-fool relation and on the wise, but sad fool. Others have found even more similarities, some with the works of Alfred Jarry and Evgheni Shvartz or even with the plays written by Vasile Alecsandri, an early 19th century Romanian playwright. Such comparisons are surely harmless. If we consider the relation between the tyrant and his people or the grotesque image of Totalitarianism which the play conveys, this text may very well resemble some brisky plays by Teodor Mazilu, 20th century Romanian playwright. As far as the relation between man (king, fool or ordinary man) and God is concerned, we can decipher some of the dramatic questions that the Russian mystics used to ask or some of the existentialists’ “negations”. But I am afraid that if we take this way we shall end up in wronging the play, that is The Legend of the Last Emperor. Apart from its obvious elitist dimension, it is a work of undisputable autonomy in structure and significance. It gives both stage directors and actors a chance to make a modern and attractive fulfillment on stage.(…)” (Ion Parhon, „Autumn Sees Premiere Harvest”, România liberă, October 17, 2002)
„The Legend of the Last Emperor staged by the National Theatre in Bucharest is sure to be one of the best performances of the last two-three years. Why such success in Romanian theatre? This is the question I am trying to answer in this review. One reason is the elite casting, no doubt about it. Another reason is the fact that is a skilled play, with masterful dialogues (and especially with the main character’s monologues on God, faith and power) that resound like wisdom literature, this way resembling no other play in contemporary Romania. Just like in his other plays (mainly The Ghost from the First Class Waiting Room), Valentin Nicolau is obviously interested in the significance of Romanian Totalitarianism, which he himself wet through, both as writer and s victim, but on this play things are given an artistic touch that dwindles the so-called “Romanian specificity” to develop upon the maddening power, which makes the dictator feel no more and no less than the son of God, born by Virgin Mary. (…) More than when read, when staged The Legend of the Last Emperor resembles Ionesco’s “The King Dies” more than we’ve thought. What these two have in common is the same pattern of a cruel fairy tale for the grown-ups. But it is not this death of man, of civilization, of the world that the author decries. What is decries instead is the death of God due to the vanity of man. (…)” (Mircea Ghiţulescu, Legenda ultimului împărat, Curentul, January 11, 2003)
„Imagine a chessboard as big as the world, on which the black and white squares are next to teach other, just like the happenings in life – we get good ones, we get bad ones. It is in this chessboard that people live, regardless of what they are: kings and queens or ordinary pawns. And people struggle, they love and they kill and they get to think they are gods. This is the metaphor expressed by The Legend of the Last Emperor, a play by Valentin Nicolau.(…) Despite some lengthy and static moment, which effect from the meditative dimension of the play offering remarkable dialogues (a common feature in this playwright’s work) and even if the ending in his particular staging is not exactly convincing, the performance can be one lesson vital to the awakening of civic spirit, now dangerously asleep in Romania. (Cristina Modreanu, An X-ray of Paranoia, Adevărul de weekend)