by Oana Ciucă Lázár
“As a young man, I read a novel by Henrich Böll that invited us, after the disaster of war, to appreciate people rather than monuments. Back then, it seemed to me an invitation towards contempt for culture, towards a tabula rasa of collective memory. Today I no longer reject this proposal with the same intransigence, I understand it differently, but I keep telling myself: people are saved not only by their presence, but also by the traces they leave, modest, personal, fragmentary, a sentimental legacy.”
Personal Paris. The house of offerings. George Banu (p. 132)
George Banu’s generosity, erudition, his charisma, honesty, frankness and simplicity are some of the traces that he left in the hearts of his friends all over the world. German director Thomas Ostermeier said of George Banu that he is the one who accompanied with criticism and love the work of many artists, thereby becoming a living archive of the European theater.
Essayist, theater critic, university professor, researcher, George Banu would have turned 80 years old, one day before the beginning of the Sibiu International Theater Festival. This year’s entire edition is dedicated to his memory. Also, the star he received in 2013 on the Walk of Fame and the cultural center in Piața Mică (the former Habitus bookstore) that will bear his name, testify that George Banu will continue to be a living presence in the city of Sibiu.
During a discussion with the president of FITS, Constantin Chiriac, I asked him how he would like to perpetuate the memory of George Banu as part of the festival from now on: “I never imagined that he would disappear. And when I was shaken by his untimely departure, I experienced a period of turmoil, but also of unexpected inner journeys, because I was caught in this moment in front of the immensity.
I was standing in front of the sea. He always stayed by my side after the festival, and we were both silent for a while, waiting for the glass of liquor that brings peace after so many nights and days of toil before and during the festival, thinking about what we would do next. We always met there after midnight.
He was the man who is and will be, the man who accompanied the greatest creators of the world. The man who did so much good because he shunned evil. Search his entire oeuvre to see if he ever wrote a chronicle dissing a show. He wrote only about the beautiful, about the good, about the miracle. And this year, you see, everything happens as God wills, not as our crooked minds think.
June 22, the day before the beginning of the festival, is a day of remembrance for him, because it is then that he should have turned 80. And the miracle starts from there. Because he is with us and he will always be. Yesterday I told him in few words what his presence at the festival means.
And the whole festival is dedicated to his memory. A miracle happened because I called his younger brother – he was the older one – Emmanuel Demarcy-Mota, who is the director of the Théâtre de la Ville, in Paris, and he said: Constantin, I have to make it to Sibiu. And he will come to Sibiu and we will do the Ionesco Suite, a performance co-produced by the TNRS, Théâtre de la Ville and Teatro della Pergola, in Florence, after the text of Eugen Ionesco, in the presence of Eugen Ionesco’s daughter, based on a collage, a structure created by George Banu and with actors from all over the world.”
The exceptional activity he carried out in the domain of international theatrical criticism and research brought George Banu numerous awards and recognitions. He was awarded three times the French Academy Award for the best book in France. He was an honorary professor of the Department of Theater Studies at the University of Sorbonne Nouvelle-Paris 3. He was elected three times President of the International Association of Theater Critics, to be later declared Honorary President of the Association for life.
He was Artistic Director of the Experimental Theater Academy in Paris, Secretary General of the Union of Theaters in Europe, but also President of the European Theater Award, being the only Romanian to receive the Grand Prix of the French Academy. He has published more than 50 books, monographs, general and thematic reviews and probably hundreds of articles in various journals.
In 2015, during FITS, after he launched a book at the Habitus Bookstore, I sat and talked for a longer time to George Banu. I talked to him about what friendship means, but we also got to the thought of when he will no longer be among us, he also talked casually about death and how he would like to remain in the memory of the city.
From that moment until this year, I re-read the interview several times, but something stopped me from publishing it, however, my heart did not allow me to delete it for good. It was as if I was writing much too soon about the day when George Banu would be the sum of our memories. I now publish a short part of that interview, as part of the special edition Capital Cultural-FITS 30, as is the right time, here are the people who knew him, those who have memories with him and who were his friends.
***
2015, at the height of the theater festival, Habitus Bookstore. The room is full of people. George Banu is launching his book “Japan, the empire of theater”. I am waiting in line for autographs, because I need some recorded material for an audio report.
He offers me the book Personal Paris. The house of offerings: “It’s a book about the fact that friends survive inside us through memories, but also through the traces they leave in our biographical, in our space. Mirrors, statues, puppets that come to life in my house and apartment, the memory of special moments and relationships.” Much later I would also discover in the book a message he wrote to me after that discussion: “for unforgettable friendships”.
Oana Ciucă Lázár: What is friendship for you?
George Banu: Friendship is, especially in today’s world, therapy, solitude is self-improvement, but friendship is a way to resist the violence that dominates the contemporary landscape. Aristotle said that there is no friendship, but that seems excessive to me. Maybe friendship is an illusion, once I told myself that friendship is the light version of love, but at the same time, friendship for me is a way of survival, of having relationships based on trust, fidelity and, above all, spiritual politeness towards people. That is why I feel good in the company of my friends.
“Theater: solitary failures, common fulfillment” or “Retrospective Monologues” by George Banu, is a radio show directed by Gavriil Pinte, or rather four episodes during which you speak about themes, ideas, conclusions that have accompanied you throughout your life.
George Banu: Theater is something ephemeral, something that does not crystallize inside a memory. Theater also produces unfulfillment for the spectators who become, as was my case, neither an actor, nor a teacher, nor a writer.
But a great theater critic.
George Banu: Maybe because I took these defeats without abandoning them, without excluding them and without turning them into frustrations. I lived with my own defeats and by trying to make them communicate, I maybe became a critic with a more original position than others, a teacher with a more original position than others, and I would say that I am the son of my defeats.
What did the theater offer you?
George Banu: Transitory fulfillment. It allowed me to live another life, a secondary life and it offered me the opportunity to experience performances as biographical events. I would generally say, not having a biography, that I was neither an adventurer nor a warrior, that I spent my life in the nights of the theater, and during those nights I experienced moments of vicarious fulfillment. Theater is a life of substitution and this substitution has nourished me, and sometimes one says I lost my life in the theater, but how many times does one say I conquered my life in the theater?!
What offerings would you make to Sibiu?
George Banu: Cadoul pe care l-aș lăsa Sibiului ar fi un cadou nu oficial ca cel pe care Sibiul mi l-a oferit punându-mi numele pe aleea creată de Constantin Chiriac. Ceea ce aș lăsa cadou Sibiului dacă orașul ar vrea, ar fi umbra mea. Umbra mea cred că s-ar simți bine în Sibiu, pentru că e un loc în care mi-am petrecut vremea, am avut prieteni, am văzut teatru. Și dacă umbra mea ar rămâne pe un zid al Sibiului, m-aș bucura.
The gift I would offer Sibiu would be an unofficial gift, like the one that Sibiu offered me by putting my name on the Walk of Fame created by Constantin Chiriac. What I would leave as a gift to Sibiu, if the city wanted me to, would be my shadow. I think my shadow would feel good in Sibiu, because it is a place where I spent my time, had friends, visited the theater. And if my shadow were to remain on one of the walls of Sibiu, I would be happy.
Cover image: Mihaela Marin
