Razvan Mazilu and the Cabaret

Dancer, choreographer and stage director Razvan Mazilu has brought to the stage of the German Theatre in Timisoara famous scores such as 'Cabaret' or 'Money, Money'.

România Internațional, 20.08.2016, 14:00

Two years ago, the dancer, choreographer and, since
recently, stage director Razvan Mazilu, brought to the stage of the German
Theatre in Timisoara famous scores such as Cabaret or Money, Money, into a
show that was hugely enjoyed by the public and critics alike: Cabaret by Joe
Masterhoff. Daniela Torok and Georg Peetz were nominated for the 2015 UNITER
Awards, in the ‘best supporting actress’ and ‘ the best supporting actor’
categories, for playing Sally Bowles and the Conferencier respectively. A year
after ‘Cabaret’, a musical about the life of cabaret theatre, in the autumn of
2015 Razvan Mazilu came to Bucharest with a piece of burlesque cabaret: Mon
Cabaret Noir, a smaller production, created in an independent space,
Teatrelli.

Here is Razvan Mazilu talking about his work:

I think that, in a previous life, I lived in the interwar period. And I
have this sense of and intuition for performance. That is why I was attracted
by this title, ‘Cabaret’, which I staged in Timisoara. I’m very much interested
in this genre, and I research it all the time. I started this type of cabaret
with the ‘Blue Angel’ at the Odeon Theatre in 2001, after the novel by Heinrich
Manna and the film with Marlene Dietrich, which made her famous. It was then
that I felt I would enjoy this area. Then, I had another encounter with cabaret
with the one-man show Sell Me’, which I made together with choreographer
Florin Fieroiu. It was a half-hour show in which I was dancing on cabaret music
performed by Eartha Kitt and which I played in very unconventional spaces.
Since then, I have promised myself I would come back to this universe. I want
to do musicals, because it is the genre that best represents me and which I
have tried with the audience. A musical synthesises dance, theatre and music,
in harmony with the sensitivity of today’s spectators. It is a genre that they
need, a sort of intelligent, cultural entertainment, which can raise questions
and issues. It’s exactly what I did with ‘The Full Monty’ at the National
Theatre in Timisoara, or ‘Cabaret’ at the German State Theatre, which are
stories full of meaning, stories from which people can really learn something.

In a world in which
television intensively promotes light entertainment, the theatrical world runs
the same risk. Razvan Mazilu has managed to set a professional direction,
alongside all the actors he has worked with.

First of all, the issues and themes we have approached do not let you
embrace light entertainment or make bad taste art. The titles I have chosen are
just proposals, equally daring and deep-going, as they are all real
masterpieces of the genre. They are well written and composed. In my turn, I am
well aware of what I want from each and every project. All these elements take the
performer to an upper level, enriching his or her means of artistic expression.
An actor evolves while performing in a musical, because this is a complex and
very elaborate show, which entails a huge amount of work. And I have always
tried to improve standards, in terms of both performance and virtuosity.

The story of the show Mon Cabaret Noir is
tightly linked to that of staging the musical Cabaret. Before starting
working on the famous production, Razvan Mazilu left for Berlin, to do some
research. Searching for shreds of the cabaret of yore, prior to WWII, Razvan
Mazilu discovered Anita Berber, a successful dancer, choreographer and actress
of the 1920’s, an avant-garde personality and rebel spirit, who had inspired
the much more famous Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo.

Razvan Mazilu: ‘Mon Cabaret Noir’
is a musical cabaret, which tells the story of the inter-war cabaret in Berlin,
because the main character, Anita Berber, was a dancer and choreographer who
worked in that Berlin-based underground cabaret during those years. It is a
musical because I imagined it as a jukebox-like musical, which takes over some
more or less famous songs, from the whole music history, from the 1920’s, to
contemporary music. We have taken over some songs which best suit and complete,
from a dramatic point of view, the story I have created. It is called ‘Noir’,
because it touches upon some very bleak, dark corners of human personality.
Furthermore, the protagonist, Anita Berber herself, was steeped in shadows. Her
persona was made of both light and shadow.

Razvan Mazilu chose
to cast in Mon Cabaret Noir four very talented actresses, with strong and
contrasting personalities: Alina Petrica, Anca Florescu, Ana Bianca Popescu and
Ilona Brezoianu. To successfully play in a musical or a cabaret show, one needs
talent, but also discipline and rigour, which are also the defining traits of
the German Theatre company in Timisoara, which collaborated with Razvan Mazilu
on this project.

Here is choreographer Razvan Mazilu again: A cabaret actor should be able to sing,
dance, perform, act, tell stories, should be willing to understand that cabaret
is another performing genre, which entails another type of acting and speech on
stage. Actors should permanently be in a playful mood, be able to do
everything, to play and perform, to sit on their heads, to tell the text or
sing a song while sitting on their heads. They should be bold, and not bashful,
equally provocative, charismatic, able to smile beautifully and be open, in a
permanent relation with the audience. It’s clear that a permanent and
direct relation between actors and the public is one of the unwritten laws of
cabaret shows.