Text taken from LiterNet.ro | author: Adrian Țion

The licentious language on stage spreads and expands like ringworm on velvety skin. Speech is filled with viruses, artistic consciousness is filled with amazement. Seniors reject the insolence of language, they vehemently detest it, embarrassed, disgusted. Young people adopt it and use it as a form of rebellion against all dogmas and coercive norms. But to use this filthy language, which has become the norm of juvenile arrogance (also a norm in reverse!), to penetrate the universe of feelings and emotions of today's teenagers, seems to me an act of extreme courage, violent and aesthetically unapproved, which breaks the patterns of theatrical convention into enough disapproving fragments. Obviously, I denounced my age, but also the rigor as a norm (another norm!) of evaluating the theatrical act.

But what do you do when licentious language is not used to impress, but to reconstruct a case of "moral indiscipline" that occurred in a gang of high school students who are making mischief on social media? The "Regina Maria" Theater in Oradea, the "Iosif Vulcan" Troupe, set out to do just that and achieved it through the project called awakening, author Doru Vatavlui, directed by Bobi Pricop. A show for teenagers, with teenagers, students and parents. Of course, a debate like in the school board about… what can happen when digital technology ends up in the hands of some naughty classmates with access to unlimited fun on the net. The victim of these „innocent” games is Amalia, a 16-year-old student at a prestigious high school in the city, whose public image was tarnished by a compromising nude photo, doctored and posted on social networks. By whom? And the question continues to haunt the group of classmates involved, but also the parents and teachers. Who is to blame and what measures can be taken to punish him? By whom?

The show has the structure of a debate on the topic of interference between the two parallel worlds (teenagers - adults) and responsibility for "jokes" of this kind that can take dramatic forms. Alina's mother retaliates harshly, insults and slaps her, her classmates run from corner to corner, scolding each other, the teachers don't know how to react. The normality of everyday life is turned upside down. The analyzed case arouses a wave of anger in the school, street, and family group. You realize that you are captive and addicted, crushed by the IT means you use daily. You can't hide from the omnipresent technological mechanisms, used in one form or another. They follow you and reveal your privacy.

The stage arrangement is ingenious, original, striking. Half theater, half film, image. Half made up of real people, students and their real parents and their projection on the witness screen, exposed for revelation. Ingenious approach. True, something like this has been done before, but not with such determination in an exclusive way. Not with the stakes of the entire show. I couldn't imagine how the banal conversations on the group chat can take visual form in the simultaneity of the lines spoken, in real time parallel with the "heroes" of the story who are spectators sitting on the chairs in the hall and looking at themselves in the mirror of the screen. When the debate becomes more extensive, those entitled to take a stand appear, also from the hall (or from behind the scenes): the parents and teachers involved in the scandal. The technical team must keep everything under control in such a way that the actors of the conflict can speak their lines, confessions, more or less controlled exits. Stormy exits, specific to young people who literally boil with the tumult existing in the sap of life like the force with which buds break the bark of linden branches in spring to bloom later. The technical team, consisting of iRonic Distors (Music & Videoart), Bogdan Țolea (Motion Graphic), Constantin Șimon (Video Programming) and Sergiu Domide (Video Operator), ensures the smooth functioning of the interweaving of words with images in a sustained rhythm, associated with the reporter's style.

Richard Balint, project coordinator, gives a brief intro to warn against licentious language, but the audience does not seem the least bit surprised by the authenticity of this discourse, revealed as a mark of persuasion. The cast is made up of teenagers and adults, digital voices and real bodies: Anastasia Vicoveanu, Robert Balint / Filip Ionescu, Rebeca Rusu, Dania Uifaluși, Benjamin Kendi, Tudor Neagu, Adela Lazar, Richard Balint / Sorin Ionescu, Alina Leonte, Răzvan Vicoveanu, Alexandru Rusu.

Not exactly comfortable conclusions are self-evident. Artificial Intelligence introduced into the public market of overwhelming virtualities dominates us, distorts our lives, normality, intimacy, personality, relationships with others. With physiognomies reproduced identically after real human models, with borrowed voices, copied and caricatured tics, public figures or only from a certain entourage can be compromised, mocked, humiliated. Who is to blame in Amalia's case? The boy unaware that he can do a lot of harm through a deepfake posted on social media? The envious girl who wants to take revenge on Amalia? Does the accusation stop at the real people incriminated or can it go higher? Who is to blame? I risk a risky response with a direct target to the title Awakening, which has in mind the desire to open our eyes wide to the phenomenon. Maybe Artificial Intelligence itself is to blame! And if so, can we punish it? For now, it punishes us.