Reviews for Mad Forest: A Play from Romania

The average rating for Mad Forest: A Play from Romania based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2018-07-02 00:00:00 Curtis Halsted I enjoy plays, which is what this work is. I have a personal interest in Romania, and in the events surrounding its 1989 revolution, which I will not discuss here. Through a play the reader is taken through scenes in Bucharest, Romania immediately prior to, and in the immediate aftermath of, the people's uprising and revolution of December 1989. The result of the revolution was the death by public execution of Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu (pronounced Char-ches-ku) for genocide by starvation and crimes against the Romanian people. The scenes include a celebration of Christmas, (which occurred in 1989 in Bucharest for the first time in over twenty years), confusion in the hospitals over the revolution itself, the safety of the city's water, (at one point it was thought that the Ceausescu's had poisoned the water in Bucharest), the reuse of needles (shoddily sterilized with drinking alcohol where possible--leading to Romania's AIDS epidemic), and the attempted assimilation of Nicolae and Elena (under assumed names) into average Romanian society to save their own skins. This effort ultimately failed, and the two were executed by firing squad). A square of chocolate is a Christmas luxury. People don't trust even children or intimate family members due to the infiltration of the Securitate (Gestapo-esque secret police) into every walk of life. Dogs and people starve all the same, and yet the hope, spirit, and heart of the Romanian people comes through. This play will break your heart. And it should be read by everyone.

Review # 2 was written on 2010-10-29 00:00:00 Michael Enos (5/10) Maybe this would have been better performed -- it's a funny thing, reading a stageplay instead of watching it, but given how rarely I go out to the theatre it's necessary to try and explore this area of literature. But this just left me cold and a bit confused. Churchill sets her play around the Romanian revolution that deposed the dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. The problem is that Churchill doesn't really seem to have much to say about the revolt other than the obvious trumpeting of liberty. At times she actively tries to write around historical fact, trying to push the Western image of the revolution as anti-communist over the fact that, when given a free vote, the Romanians chose to put the Communists back into power. Structurally the play consists of two relatively conventional acts, set before and after the revolution, about two interlocked families, and a choral centrepiece which is a kind of "voice of the people" portrayal of the revolution. It's interesting to see such a socialistic technique -- Eisensteinian types collectively overthrowing the old order, each worker accorded his own opinion -- in an anti-communist play. Whether this is intentional irony or ideological undercutting and appropriation depends on your viewpoint and how much credit you're willing to give Churchill. As for the more conventional acts, the highlight is the super-realist dialogue, where characters will interrupt and talk over each other with no regard for the viewer. Unfortunately, the characters and plot in this section are one-dimensional and flat, and I never found a reason to care about any of it. With some work the central choral section could have been expanded into a decent work, as contained within is a nascent sense of the chaos that all revolutions, even the most just, are filled with. But as a whole Mad Forest seems like a cautionary tale of trying to adapt current events for the stage.