Written by: Raluca Medeleanu
Taken from: www.specialarad.ro

The clothes that were handed to the audience – white boots and gowns – automatically foreshadowed one of the main themes of the show: birth, but also the idea of a sterile, closed environment, in which man is something foreign, an intruder, whose presence seems to not matter, has no place. Just as the audience became part of the scenery, so too did the people in the community presented in the show lose themselves in the scenery, intentionally becoming „non-existent”, for fear that nature would literally make them one and the same with it.

The show "Avalanșa", brought to the International New Theatre Festival by the "Regina Maria" Theatre in Oradea, was directed by the well-known Petru Vutcărău and, surprisingly, is based on a true story. In a small, forgotten mountain village in eastern Anatolia (Asia Minor), people are only allowed to make noise for 3 months a year, the rest of the time they are forced to live in silence, because even the slightest sound could trigger an avalanche, killing them.

The show starts from this premise, but the real story is just a launching pad for philosophical ideas that orbit around the feeling of fear. Fear of death, fear of change...

When people are confronted with the atrocities of nature, they are reduced to the primordial state of animal-man, who must defend their pack at all costs. And then, what importance can the life of a single person have in the balance with the life of the entire community? During the period of avalanche danger, there must be complete silence. So a woman who is about to give birth has no place in such an environment. Both she and the child make too much noise. The importance of one life pales in comparison to the importance of saving dozens, or maybe even hundreds of lives. Fear generates strict laws, and births are controlled to the great fixed. They can only occur during the 3 months of noise, and whoever does not comply… must be silenced.

When you live in constant fear and leave your life in the hands of leaders who also blindly follow long-written rules that seem to have always protected them, do you still have the courage to stand up and protest, when you feel that these rules are also subject to error? Or does fear completely freeze your throat and reason? Those who disagree with the rules get up and leave. As the village elders observed, "Young people are different. They leave and never come back." Those who still want to live there... Silence slowly takes away any trace of humanity. Some become ice floes. Others lose their minds... But what happens to those who have the courage to change their old mentalities, to face danger, to take risks and challenge the laws? Will they manage to get through with their heads held high or will they be swallowed up by the snow forever?

The profound script, written by Turkish playwright Tuncer Cucenoglu, came to life thanks to the talent of the actors who gave life to the characters (who had to speak their lines in a whisper, with the help of a microphone pressed to their foreheads!), the disturbing music and the exceptional, minimal but effective set design, relying more on the dazzling white of the snow and the spotlights, blue and yellow, cold and warm.

„"Avalanșa" is that kind of show that doesn't end with the curtain, but leaves your mind wandering, even after you've left the theater. Because, if at first the story that unfolded before your eyes seemed more than absurd, you can't stop asking yourself and asking yourself questions. Even so, if you were there, in that little village forgotten by fate, how far would you be able to go to survive? Would you submit or break the ice?