Playwriting the “Next Generation”. How to Create a Character at the University of Arts in Târgu-Mureș.

Fabulamundi. Playwriting Europe. New Voices is a European project which aims to bring contemporary playwriting closer to the younger generations, addressing young people aged 17 – 27 through workshops led by accomplished playwrights who act as tutors/mentors for the participants. The project is partnering over 14 theatres, festivals and cultural organizations from 9 countries[1].

Anda Cadariu: My previous interview in the framework of this Fabulamundi edition, New Voices, in which the University of Arts in Târgu-Mureș is present again, as a long-standing Fabulamundi partner, was a dialogue with twinned playwright Bernhard Studlar. But this time, I would like to hear both from Elise and from you, Ingeborg, since I am interested – and I am sure the readers are, as well –in the co-tutoring process just as much as in the ongoing workshop itself. So, first I will ask Elise how she feels about working with the same group on a different segment of playwriting which is actually the title of this second short Fabulamundi workshop this year: How to create a character.

Elise Wilk: I really like this group, so I was happy to work with them again. They are studying at the Arts High School here, in Târgu-Mureș, they are enrolled in Acting Studies, and they are students in the tenth and eleventh grade. I love their enthusiasm, and it’s obvious they like the workshop I’m leading. They like writing and focusing on characters and now they each work on their character based on the documentation they did when we started. At first, I sent them to observe people on the streets, after that we had a session during which they described what they saw and heard, and then they each chose one character they wanted to create. We worked on this a little bit with Bernhard Studlar, and even now, before Ingeborg came, we focused on that. I think they have aquired impressive skills for building a character. Now we are writing short scenes with interconnected characters. Each participant has to develop an extra character created by another workshop participant. This workshop is actually an opportunity to move on from the incipient stage they were in when they worked with Bernhard. Their characters are lifelike now. Ingeborg, whom we invited to co-tutor this session, wrote down a lot of things regarding the students’ progress.

C.: Which brings me to my next question: Ingeborg, how do you find them as a group? They were already coheded when you joined the workshop and I was wondering how you find them as a co-mentor.

Ingeborg von Zadow: I find them very pleasant and lively. They already knew a lot about their characters when we started working together, and I couldn’t agree more with what Elise said: they managed to render lifelike characters: complex, living human beings. Since the idea is to connect these characters in a play, we came up with an exercise yesterday, in which the characters have to interact with each other. We chose which teams were going to work together, each team had two or three people in it. The exercise consists of a basic situation encountered in drama: one character wants something desperately from another character and they have to try their best to get it. As a result we got some very interesting scenes.

C.: And what exercises have you prepared for the upcoming workshop session today?

W.: Today we are going to use a game. We will play with some cards for fortunetellers, which were used in Vienna, at the beginning of the 20th century. With their help, we will let destiny and fortune make their way into the characters’ lives. We will work on some love stories…

I.v.Z.:  … in which A is in love with B, B invites A to his/her house and A decides to let B know about his/her feelings. But then three things happen in order to prevent this revelation, and we will leave it for the workshop participants to decide what these three things are going to be.

C.: So „playfulness” is the key word here!

I.v.Z.: Of course, especially because they will have to find a way for the character to overcome the obstacles. Once they have been overcome, the character has to say the line „I love you!”, but the other character does not reply yet. The scene stops there in this first phase. But there’s another phase, so this is not the end. After they finish this part, they will have to come to us, the tutors, and pick one of the cards. We chose six cards, they are not regular playing cards, they have characters on them, like fortune telling decks of cards do. So – on one card, they will find a thief, on another – a visitor, but there could also be a letter etc. According to the card they will have picked, they are going to incorporate another event into the scene and only finish it after incorporating this new challenge.

W.: This workshop session comes after another series of writing exercises. We worked on character layers, on text and situation layers and we used a visual method: we drew icebergs on a whiteboard. The purpose of this exercise was to define and organize the characters’ traits. So, for instance, there’s a layer that everyone sees in the character whose iceberg we drew, as it were, then there’s one that only a few other characters see, and then, there’s another layer – a character’s dark secrets, for example. We drew these icebergs for every characters and then, to encourage this visualisation process, we drew their houses, objects the characters keep there, and we even drew the city, Târgu-Mureș, because these characters live here.

I.v.Z.: And the idea is to connect the scenes in a way that is inspired by a play by Arthur Schnitzler…

W.: Yes, we will use the structure of Schnitzler’s play La Ronde. It consists of many interlocking scenes between two people. Each of the characters appears in two consecutive scenes (with one from the final scene, having appeared in the first). The aim is to familiarize the participants with a circular structure. We might even work with the students on writing a short play based on this exercise at the end of the workshop.

I.v.Z.: We’re also going to do the first exercise I mentioned again, only in reversed roles and we’re eager to find out what scenes the students will write this time.

C.: These sound like great exercises. And you two, being multi-awarded, very successful playwrights, must have some exercises you love to do yourselves, for – let’s say – warming up or keeping in shape as artists. If there are any, can you share those, as well? But more importantly, I’d like to know how you started writing plays.

I.v.Z.: I fell in love with theatre at the age of 8.

W.: And I fell in love with writing at the age of 8.

I.v.Z.: I spent my childhood in the USA, and in elementary school, I saw a school play which was Sartre’s Closed Doors. Not really a play for children, but my parents took me nevertheless because it was performed at school. And as I was sitting there, I became absolutely fascinated. Somehow, the onstage action, which I knew was made up, managed to reach through to me, and this feeling, this combination of onstage and audience emotion made me think, when I got home: „I want to do this!”. I started writing dialogues and inventing stories and thinking how they would work on the stage and… I never stopped!

C.: So it was love at first sight!

I.v.Z.: Absolutely. I just knew this was it!

C.: As for the writing exercises, do you do any by yourself, in order to start writing a play, or you just… start writing?

I.v.Z.: I don’t really do exercises, my writing starts in different ways: sometimes through research, sometimes theatres commission plays about a certain subject matter, sometimes I write a beginning dialogue and this leads to a whole play, sometimes I develop a plot first. It’s often easier for me to write when I know the plot beforehand, and it’s essential to know the ending.

C.: And you, Elise? Do you do some kind of warm-up?

W.: Actually, I do a lot of exercises at workshops, with my students, so I like to invent them – but not for myself.

C.: You have both written plays for young audiences. How did you find your (as they call it in advertising) „target audience”? Why do you write for them?

W.: I no longer write about teenagers, it’s been seven years since I „moved away” from these themes. But when I first discovered this audience, I realized there was an unmet need for this kind of dramatic writing in Romania and I wanted to explore this segment. Now I think it’s time for younger playwrights to do this, and I hope they will, because the need is still there, not only in Romania, but also in other countries. I was told in all the countries where my plays have been staged that young adults are neglected as a target audience and that the age segment ranging from fourteen to eighteen years old is really difficult to cover.

C.: Ingeborg, on the other hand, covers an even younger audience…

I.v.Z.: I have one play for three-year-olds, Outside the House, but my regular audience consists of six- to eight-year-olds and above. The beginning of my career in writing for young audiences was, in a way, kind of an accident. When I finished school, I wanted to study playwriting, but there was no line of study in this department in Germany at the time. So I started studying something else, but then I found a one-week playwriting course. I applied, got in, and only after I was accepted did I discover that it was for playwrights who were interested in writing for young audiences, something I hadn’t noticed before applying. I started the course and I met Suzanne van Lohuizen from the Netherlands, who has unfortunately now passed away. She was my first teacher and she was excellent for me. I was in my twenties and I still felt close to childhood, so writing for children came naturally.

Children are an excellent audience to learn playwriting: they force you to write in a way that keeps their attention focused on what’s happening onstage, if they are not interested, they will show you. A good play for children should always also be interesting for adults, that is one of the things that makes it  good! I keep working on these two layers: to reach both children and adults – who usually accompany children at the theatre, as parents or teachers.

C.: Have either of you ever felt „labeled” because of your target audience?

I.v.Z.: In Germany I find it difficult to change your target audience. If you start writing for children, people think that’s your niche.

W.: I never wrote “for teenagers”, but about them. Because it´s important also for adults, like parents and teachers, to see these performances. At the moment, I’m really interested in the way political events can shape the private lives of people and families. My play Disappearing, which won the Aurora playwriting prize in Poland and which was produced many times, including here, in Târgu-Mureș, is a good example. In People You Don´t Love Anymore, written for the theatre in Arad, I approached the subject matter of breakups. I wrote Union Place, a trilingual play connecting stories from three different countries, which was produced at Schauspielhaus Salzburg for a cast coming from Austria, Romania and Luxembourg. Also, Happy People, a play about poverty that was comissioned by the theatre from Altenburg-Gera in Germany.

And now, the team at Yorick Studio in Târgu-Mureș is rehearsing my most recent play, Alaska, a story about mothers and daughters that stretches from the communist years until nowadays. The premiere will be in October. And, last but not least, I wrote my first text for a musical, it will open at Godot theatre in Bucharest in July – it’s about secondary characters and the unknown part of the story in Romanian fairy tales, it will be a show for the whole family.

C.: What about you, Inge? Are you working on anything at the moment?

I.v.Z.: I’m working on a play for children at the moment which I would like to see on the big stage as a Christmas production. I recently wrote a libretto for an opera (The Children of the Sultan, composed by Avner Dorman and produced by Opera Dortmund), and I learned to love the big stage. Productions for Children are usually in smaller venues in Germany But this play will be written for  the main stage. It will be a kind of fairy tale that I made up myself. It’s called Nolina and the Sorcerer and it’s about this strong girl character, who is approached by a goose and told she has to save a far away kingdom and its queen. At some point, the audience will realize the goose is the queen herself, transformed into poultry by a sorcerer. There is of course a reason why the goose picks this particular girl and not some other character to save the kingdom. I enjoy writing strong female characters who take action.

C.: As accomplished playwrights and trainers, tutors, do you think there are „new voices” among the participants in the workshop you are leading now? Could one or more of the students who are attending it become professional playwrights, like you?

W.: I think we have a great responsibility in this respect. The participants are really listening to our advice and feedback and sometimes I am afraid when it comes to noticing their potential. What if I don’t give the right feedback? I don’t like workshops where tutors say everything’s great when in fact it isn’t, but I don’t like tutors who heavily criticize the participants, either. I hope I can help them find their voice. And our purpose in the framework of these workshops is to give them the opportunity to discover their vocation as playwrights and to offer our support.

I.v.Z.: Yes, it’s all about encouraging them and giving them confidence. They are really good, they have lots of ideas. I don’t know them enough yet to be able to answer if any one of them could really become a professional playwright. But I would like to encourage them all to find out if they would want to try.

C.: I, for one, think that both your balanced feedback (not too much praise, but also no discouraging, either) and sharing your expertise is the most important – and generous – form of support. Thank you for the interview and let’s go and start today’s writing session!

Ingeborg von Zadow was born in Berlin and brought up in Germany, the USA and Belgium. She has been writing plays since her childhood. She studied in Gießen and holds a Master of Arts degree in Theater from the State University of New York at Binghamton, USA. Since her debut as a playwright with ME AND YOU there have been over a hundred professional productions of Ingeborg von Zadow´s plays on german and international stages. Her works have been translated into twelve different languages. She is the winner of the Brüder-Grimm-Prize of Berlin and was short-listed for the German Childrens Theater Prize.

Ingeborg von Zadow, 2021. Credit foto: Sarina Chamatova

Elise Wilk, born in Brașov and growing up bilingual (German and Romanian) is one of the most performed playwrights of the young generation in Romania. She studied journalism in Cluj-Napoca, creative writing in Brașov and playwriting in Târgu Mureș. In 2020, she defended her PhD thesis at the University of Arts in Târgu Mureș, on the topic of Youth Theatre in Romania. Currently she is teaching Playwriting at the University of Arts in Târgu Mureș. In 2008 she received the Romanian dramAcum award for her first play It happened on a Thursday. Since then, her plays have been staged both in Romania and abroad and have so far been translated into 13 languages.

Elise Wilk. Credit foto: Alexandra Bordeianu

Anda Cadariu is a writer, a translator, and a lecturer at the University of Arts in Târgu-Mureș, Romania. She won several research and visiting scholarships at prestigious international universities (Jagiellonian University in Cracow, University of Warsaw, University of Castilla-La Mancha, University of Miskolc.) She holds a PhD in Theatre Studies and has published essays, fiction, reviews and interviews in Echinox, Vatra, Bucureştiul Cultural (the supplement of 22 magazine), Observator Cultural, Respiro, Cultura etc.

Anda Cadariu. Credit foto: Ana Gabriela Cadariu

[1][1] For further details, please access www.fabulamundi.eu. Fabulamundi. Playwriting Europe. New Voices is co-funded by the European Union through the Creative Europe program.