8 Words (that Make a Title) March 8th, 2024 – International Women’s Day

Female Playwrights and Applied Intersectionality in Romanian Theater

By Dr. C?t?lina Florina Florescu

8 Words (that Make a Title)

March 8th, 2024 – International Women’s Day

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I’m composing this short note on my latest volume on a day that became an international celebration officially observed by the United Nations in 1975. Therefore, next year, this day will mark its 50th anniversary, although we should all know that it dates back to the 19th century, although we should all know that women tried to fight for their rights for an even longer period of time. It matters thus to me, an individual born in a female body, to ask myself why my precedent, contemporary, and future generations had, have, and will have to fight for equity, inclusion, and other rights? Please be advised that that is a rhetorical question, and rather than answer it, let’s focus our energy on valuing women’s worth!

?Female Playwrights and Applied Intersectionality in Romanian Theater published by Routledge is my 11th book. After editing and publishing books on health, immigration, Englishes, education, motherhood, as well as plays, poems, and short stories, it is time to write sporadically, if at all. The current book does not advance my career at all, and that could be the first look into the intersectional aspect of it, heavily used and applied in the volume. Still, the best way to briefly talk about this unique book is by focusing on each word from its title, so, please indulge me.

1.????????????? “Female” is without a doubt very relevant because to this day, while there has been an increase in the number of female authors who write plays, our works are scarcely staged and performed both in Romania and the world. Sadly, speaking about the latter, the global repertoire vastly lacks adequate (international) female representation, when compared to their male, dead or alive, peers.

2.????????????? “Playwrights” was a term that was first noted to be used in the early 17th century, yet writers of dramatic works were recorded way back, if, as we should, connect this to the Greek antiquity. Furthermore, in the chapter from this book where I talk about “Moss,” my own play, I educate everyone about the first female playwright of the world, Hrotsvitha of Gandersheim, whose works came to be in the 10th century, yet, to this day, when we teach the history of this literary genre, we rarely, if at all, talk about her remarkable circumstances and body of work.

3.????????????? “and” is the first small word in the title and its only conjunction. It is copulative in nature, therefore, it connects the first two words, “female playwrights,” to the rest. It signals that the force of the volume comes from this noun, playwright, preceded by an adjective, female.

4.????????????? “Applied” is fundamental for my identity as an educator. I do not enter a classroom knowing that I occupy the space designated for me, the one who in theory outranks my students, but fully aware of this division and willing to break the invisible yet traumatic “4th wall of academia.” For the past decade, informed by my hyphenated academic status, Romanian born American scholar and author, related to my invisible/hidden disability that I have had since I was 5 years old, on account of evaluations that students give in-class and/or at the end of the semester, I have decided that, if I continued to teach in a toxic and monotonous way, asking students to constantly be seated, constantly listening to my authoritarian voice as “birthed” artificially by the education system, constantly assigning them to read exclusively from the vast material published by critics, no matter how pertinent, constantly silencing their own voices, in whichever incipient form and shape that might be, I would simply hate myself deeply and irreversibly. Unlike Americans who say too hastily “I hate this, and I hate that…,” when Romanians use the word, “a ur?,” we actually have a visceral reaction to it. Following a mysterious boomerang-effect, it pains us back to say this word in writing and/or in speaking. So, I wanted to ensure that I would never have to be the one who hated herself for not changing the very old ways in which we teach. My classrooms are labs where we try, test, fail, and succeed – so, where we learn together. My teaching style is applied, integrated, and experiential. I would not know how to be of any use otherwise.

5.????????????? “Intersectionality” is a word that has a fascinating history, as explained in the book, too. When Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw first introduced it at a conference, later the same year, 1989, my country of birth will finally be dictator-free, my beloved Europe will be without its traumatic Iron Curtain, and we will try to learn this new word (to us, yet again, so old), “democracy.” The concept “intersectionality” will revolutionize how we understand systems of oppressions, and it will thus be that kind of word to signal deeper global problems; furthermore, its honest force will help humanity evolve, repair, and ultimately, heal.

6.????????????? “in” is the second small word in the title and the only preposition. According to its definition, it is “a word or a group of words that is used to show direction, time, place, location, spatial relationships, or to introduce an object.” In my case, I wanted the last two words of the title to pay respect to my origins, Romanian, and to the strong connection that I have had with theater ever since I discovered it playfully when I was a child and came upon an anthology of poems and short plays.

7.????????????? “Romanian” is in my blood. My DNA test may scientifically analyze my blood and create an ancestry map, but my birth certificate will always point to a small place in Romania, M?cin, in Tulcea county, part of Dobrogea, the most eclectic region in Romania where many ethnic groups have been living harmoniously for centuries!

8.????????????? “Theater,” mon amour, and after that, Curtain!

Well, not really, because the book is a mature invitation to look at serious issues that affect women of all backgrounds and identities in Romania and, when playwrights, like me, left our country of birth, how our lineage has blended or braided with what we found in our new motherlands. By using ten plays, I focus on several aspects: the pressure to follow rules imposed on women (Feminine by Dr. Elise Wilk); depression and its higher rates in females (Schr?dinger’s Cat by Alexa B?canu); tools to reinvent oneself as a mother in a new land (A Land Full of Heroes by Carmen-Francesca Banciu); Roma Holocaust and Roma discrimination (Romacene: The Age of the Witch by Mihaela Dr?gan); dehumanization on account of globalization (The Pulverized by Alexandra Badea); LBGTQ+ rights and a harsh commentary on heteronormativity (Moss by Dr. C?t?lina Florina Florescu); cheap labor force and its subsequent massive working exodus (Offline Family by Dr. Mihaela Michailov); the role of the female artist in making the world a better place (Let’s Talk about Life! by Ana-Sorina Corneanu); alternative universes where matriarchal values restart the world as seen in perpetual motion (Exile Is My Home by Dr. Domnica R?dulescu); and immigration and silenced abuse (Aliens with Extraordinary Skills?by Dr. Saviana St?nescu).?

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Finally, each chapter ends with games and activities that can be used by educators in classrooms and beyond. The book is vastly Romanian in as much as it is universally versatile not only when looking at its multilingual approach, but also when debunking the myth that certain literatures are minor. That is what the oppressor wants the audience to believe. It is another way to control us. But, as shown in my book, we do have the means to control the narratives in our personal and professional lives. The time to ask permission to sit at the table where male playwrights enjoy their immortality is over!

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The book can be bought directly from the publisher’s website: https://www.routledge.com/Female-Playwrights-and-Applied-Intersectionality-in-Romanian-Theater/Florescu/p/book/9780367474140, as well as at many authorized booksellers.

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