In the Pull of Cultures: Elise Wilk’s Theatre Cover Image

Kultúrák vonzásában – Elise Wilk színháza
In the Pull of Cultures: Elise Wilk’s Theatre

Author(s): Gabriella-Nóra Tar
Subject(s): Theatre, Dance, Performing Arts
Published by: Korunk Baráti Társaság
Keywords: Elise Wilk; Dispariții/Eltűntek; Transylvanian Saxons in the 20th and 21st centuries; women’s stories on stage; male narrators

Summary/Abstract: Elise Wilk’s name is familiar to both the Transylvanian Saxon community and the Romanian theatre world. She is at home in two cultures (German and Romanian): as editor-in-chief of the Karpatenrundschau in Brașov and as a journalist, she regularly publishes in German, and her plays, written in Romanian, have been translated into several languages and are performed in several European theatres. In addition to her thematic preferences, the author’s national and international success is probably due to the original style and composition of her pieces.This paper explores the specific architecture of Wilk’s theatrical texts through the playwright’s 2019 play Dispariții / Eltűntek / Verschwinden / The Disappeared. The Eltűntek was commissioned by the Yorick Studio in Târgu Mureș and premiered on 17 September 2019 in Hungarian (translated by Mária Albert), directed by Aba Sebestyén. This is the first play by Elise Wilk in which the author explores the fate of the Transylvanian Saxons in the 20th and 21st centuries. The text focuses on the stories of three generations of three women from a Transylvanian Saxon family. Elise Wilk’s storytelling does not follow the chronology of history, but moves backwards and forwards in time as a strange, sometimes lyrical blend of epic and dramatic passages, with women’s stories coming to life on stage, among others, through male narrators.

  • Issue Year: 2022
  • Issue No: 09
  • Page Range: 75-83
  • Page Count: 9
  • Language: Hungarian
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