Sylwia Kucharuk

The aim of this article is to present the evolution of poetics in the dramatic work of Matéi Visniec, a French-speaking Romanian author, taking into consideration various factors related to his bilingual and bicultural background. France, which he refers to as his mental homeland, becomes his adopted country, and the French language, his preferred writing language. An accomplished francophone author, he remains deeply rooted in the culture and tradition of his country of origin, and he constantly refers to it in his works. Being suspended between the two very different cultures is an enriching experience for him and an important source of inspiration.

Matéi Visniec’s play Paparazzi ou La Chronique d’un lever de soleil avorté presents a vision of the end of the world, brought about by the implosion of the Sun. The action of the dramatic play focuses on the protagonists’ reactions to the impending catastrophe, rather than on the apocalyptic event itself. Visniec uses the metaphor of the apocalypse as a tool to criticize society and its loss of values. He depicts how a consumer society can demoralize individuals, leading to their isolation and inability to engage in interpersonal communication.

Arrestation by Jean Anouilh is a peculiar study of feelings such as hatred, anxiety, regret and shame. The feelings originating from his humble upbringing, have a negative impact on relations with loved ones. The author has chosen a quite interesting way to portray those complicated relations by means of retrospection, which at the same time is the introspection of the protagonist. It helps him to finally understand and tame his negative emotions, which according to him, were the reason for his life’s misfortune. Some critics have discerned the author’s incarnation in the protagonist. Through this creation the author can express on stage his own feelings, which seemed to be too difficult for him to express in real life. However, knowing the author’s unpredictability and his inclination for provocation, there is a suspicion that it might only be a sort of game played with the critics and the audience.

The play The Return Home by Matéi Visniec commemorates the First World War, but thanks to its universality it may refer to any war. The characters – the Dead of the Homeland – are all presented as alive and they claim their right to a dignified return to the Homeland. But how to return home with dignity in the state of decomposition in which they are? As it happens every day in a community life, ambitions take over. The Commission of Reconciliation solves the problem by proposing to return them “in cake”: all the soldiers pass through a food mill to become a smooth paste with which then a giant cake is made. This return to the past, presented through grotesque images, serves the  author to  denounce how people are manipulated by big ideas. He also poses questions about the meaning of war.

Matéi Visniec can be considered a “committed” author, in the broadest sense of the term, because he often speaks on current socio-political problems. For him, writing is a mission, as evidenced in numerous interviews and the peritexts of his works. This article aims to analyse Visniec’s relationship to literature and to his own writing, as well as to define his literary mission and to analyse the way it manifests itself in his dramatic work.