The perspective of bicultural identity in the dramaturgy of Eugen Ionescu and Matei Vișniec

The „George Enescu” National University of Arts from Iași was co-organizer of the International Colloquium Cultures and Identities held at the Royal Belgian Academy and the Université Libre de Bruxelles, on November 16-17, 2023.

During the international colloquium, The Institute for Multidisciplinary Research in Art (ICMA) presented the lecture The perspective of bicultural identity in the dramaturgy of Eugen Ionescu and Matei Vișniec presented by scientific researcher PhD Ioana-Raluca Zaharia, on November 16, 2023, at the Royal Belgian Academy, rue Ducale 1, 1000 Brussels.

The lecture aimed at analyzing the key plays of the two authors from the perspective of a similar bicultural identity and a type of dramatic writing that is part of the theater of the absurd.

Identity is a complex concept that encompasses many aspects of a person’s life, including their professional life, origins and political ideology. In other words, identity covers several dimensions that are closely interrelated: individual, relational and cultural. The term culture, in turn, can be understood as referring to the knowledge, custom or habit acquired by humans as members of a society. When individuals have two reference societies, a dual culture, they are exposed to cultural diversity, which has consequences for identity. The theatricality of language, intertextuality, aesthetic absurdity (Ionescu) and the concept of absurd reality (Vișniec) are reflected in this biculturality.

Influenced by Romanian and French cultures, they forged unique, atypical and exceptional ways of being, without escaping the inherent tensions and conflicts of identity that are inevitably reflected in their unparalleled dramatic works. Following the Caragiale-Ionesco-Vișniec filiation, our study examined the sources and resources of the theater of the absurd (Caragiale) and its hybrid forms, as found in Vișniec, without forgetting the architecture of the void and of words, characteristic of Ionescu’s theater.