Text taken from LiterNet.ro | author: Cristina Smadea

To wake up... means to wake up from a night or day sleep, from a dream, from an illusion, from a state of laziness, from drunkenness, to understand what is happening around you or with you, opening the eyes of the body, mind, and soul.

We, humans, are dreamers by nature, consciously and unconsciously, and dreams are, very often, the result of our more or less hidden thoughts, of desires crammed into a pocket of the heart or a drawer of the mind. What separates us from animals is precisely this awakening, as an understanding of the meaning of the word MAN, and the result of this understanding is respect and love for your fellow human beings. Otherwise, we become beasts.

Adolescence is a fragile period in our existence, when we oscillate between childhood and adulthood, when we seek to discover who we really are, ourselves, not like our mother, not like our father, not like anyone else. However, we seek role models, we also want to be like someone else. It is a paradox of our existence, which we carry within us on the path of self-knowledge.

I thought about these things on the winding road back home, from Oradea to Alba Iulia. And I thought about them because I had no other choice, because I had witnessed a "show", with and for teenagers, which took me through all kinds of states, from emotion to amazement, indignation, pain... I put quotation marks around the word show precisely because I didn't feel like I was at a show, but that I was drawn, like a whirlwind of a tornado, into a quasi-familiar world, with its own language, with a specific communication network, but which experienced the same feelings and emotions that teenagers of any time experience. And in the end, I felt thrown out of that whirlwind, returned to "my world", awakened as if from a numbness, from a kind of judgment, or perhaps prejudice.

This project-show of Iosif Vulcan Troupe of the Regina Maria Theater Oradea – awakening, made me remember not only my own adolescence, but also my daughter's adolescence, in relation to what I saw and heard. I always maintain (at high school reunions, which I constantly attend, in my uniform from that time) that we were not better high school students than our children were, than those of today, but we simply lived in a different society, with much more restrictions, with less information, with less technology, about AI... what more can I say. I think we also had our own language, which adults looked at with contempt, with a frown, maybe not so generalized, but rather a group one, more diluted, less sophisticated I would say. But the questions and problems inherent in puberty and the desires that come with these questions are the same. The generation of teenagers, of which my daughter was a part, benefited from a different openness to the world, an openness that brings, along with freedom of expression, movement, and language, a certain danger. Today's generation has technology at its fingertips; the phone – which I did not have as a teenager, which my daughter received late, with the prohibition of taking it to school – has become an extension of the limbs, a necessity without which life is not worth living. And, along with this extension, language has changed, communication no longer exists literally, but only in networks, with quick and abbreviated messages, with posts and like-s, and all kinds of emoticons. Even the facial expressions are somewhat different.

The subject of this theatrical approach sheds light, implicitly in discussion, on the situation that was created following the creation and posting on social media of the compromising image of a student with a 10th grade mark, an Olympian, therefore a nerd. It is a nude image, which, in the context of her appreciation as a model student, arouses reactions and judgments. No one stops to analyze, but everyone, under the empire of 21st century speed, rushes to judge, to flourish, to give verdicts, even to amplify thoughtlessly. The targeted teenager is put against the wall by her own mother, first of all, who calls her a whore, without thinking, her classmates look at her with suspicion, her so-called best friends, avoid believing her (later it will be found out that her best friend is the author of the fake image, created with AI). Amalia, the 16-year-old teenager, is confused. At first she doesn't realize what's happened to her. She's a teenager who likes to learn, but doesn't want to be considered a nerd, she also wants to be popular (according to the American model, very well infiltrated in the thinking and way of expression of today's youth). She keeps repeating her innocence, and the repetitive why that the school psychologist, whom she reaches without her will, keeps asking her, pushes her to hide her feelings rather than reveal them. BullyingThe - is triggered, it's a general one: students, teachers, parents, everyone points the finger at her. And no one seems capable of a balanced attitude and reaction. And she is unable to defend herself, she is somehow alone against everyone.

From the dialogues that several colleagues have on their private networks, we discover the thoughts and desires that animate each one: sexual, friendship, fun. Out of the desire to show off and attract attention, they emit other fake news, which triggers new problems, intrigues, discussions. Thus, one of the colleagues, Bogdan, who may like her, but is not sure about that either, in order to attract attention and without realizing the possible consequences, launches the idea that he is the one who created the false image. His friends disown him, his father fails in the dialogue with him (in fact, he never really managed to have a dialogue with him, although he wanted to, but could not find the key), instead he attracts Amalia's attention, causing her to ask herself questions, and, after the first impulse was to give him a block, later feels attracted and wants to learn more about this boy, introverted and misunderstood in his own way. Disputes between parents, teachers who fail to converge in managing the situation created, teenagers gripped by scandal fever, and, among all of them, even a kid, who, although well below the age limit at which it is allowed to access certain adult sites, takes advantage, because he can, and posts the image, thus amplifying the entire situation – a world, oh, what a world, trapped between some limits, in the inability to find a balance.

This guilt, which can so easily be transferred from one person to another, with serious, major consequences, drives the so-called good friend to reveal her deed, only now she can no longer be trusted. Her inability to do it at the right time, so to speak, has pushed things into an area from which they can hardly be turned back. But her deed, as well as her inability to confess it, come from a frustration, which no one knows, therefore no one can understand, a frustration born from the dysfunctional family she is part of, the need for attention, envy...

The stage is empty, dominated only by a huge screen, on which the viewer can watch their dialogues unfold, filmed live, with a mobile phone, from the theater. So, they are among us, children and parents, a breath away. And we, the viewers, are in their room, in their phone, in their thoughts and desires.

I don't know why, but I thought about Spring awakening by Frank Wedekind, which, after all, I read as a teenager. The title certainly made the first reference (I think that before getting to the show, I made an association, so unconsciously), and then I thought that the rape, literally, in Wedekind's play, is somewhat similar to what happened to the teenager in Doru Vatavului's play (a playwright appreciated for his texts, anchored in a reality that, perhaps, many times, we don't see, or we refuse to see).

In my adolescence there was too little information, there were many taboo subjects, parents did not talk to their children, brought by storks. Today, should there be too much information?! Because we still have enough taboo subjects. Parents no longer have time for dialogue? Teachers are sometimes put up against the wall, sometimes too careless, captive in turn between rigor and freedom. And children, from too young ages, have access to too much… Will that balance so necessary for a simple and humane society ever be found?

I don't know who said it anymore. Free admission, the TVR Cultural show, that theater is not healing, it does not have this role, but rather its role is to problematize, to determine you to point out problems, to spark discussions, questions... and I can say that I completely agree. And awakening Doru Vatavlui's, as conceived and mounted by Bobi Pricop, aims to bring us face to face, in this case, with the problems of Generation Z teenagers, with technology addiction and the danger of AI, if we are not careful how we use them and for what purpose, with the problems of education in school, but also with the problems that target the family, as the nucleus of society, in the year of grace 2026.

The end of this situation is one with happy end, however, bringing two young people, not from Verona, but from a provincial town in Romania, one in each other's arms, in search of the pure, human emotion that only closeness and face-to-face meeting, eye-to-eye gaze, can bring. No screen, no meme or emojis, cannot replace a touch, a direct look, a hug. It was their step towards maturity, innocently guilty, who understood, from everything that happened to them, what the truly important things are.

Theater Actors Queen Mary they played alongside their children, teenagers, who accepted to step into the shoes of characters who are, in fact, so real and are part of their existence, of all of our existence. Along with them, throughout the entire creative period, which lasted almost a year, was a psychologist, who ensured that the adolescents involved did not become emotionally immersed in the roles in a way that could affect their inner balance, providing a safe framework for work and reflection (details from the program booklet). They behaved naturally for their age, they were authentic and credible, and I applauded them for the way they knew how to carry this experience to the end and convey what needed to be conveyed.

awakening is the kind of necessary educational theatrical project that I think as many teenagers, parents and teachers as possible should see. The show does not end with applause, but invites dialogue, debate, questions, without claiming to solve the problems in question. And it does not end even after the debates, because you leave the room with many questions. For example, the image of Bogdan (Robert Balint) still lingers in my mind, when he reveals that he is not actually the one who took the photo, then he stands up and turns to face us, and asks us, with desperation on his face: Do you believe me? Do you believe me?

I can only congratulate the management of this theater for such an endeavor, and applaud the entire team for its success.