Yours, Caragiale aka Al Matale, Caragiale from Works by Ion Luca Caragiale

 Yours, Caragiale aka Al Matale, Caragiale from Works by Ion Luca Caragiale


Another version of this note and thoughts on other books are available at:

-              https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEVa4_CsRStSBBDo4uJWT8BSWtTTn0N1E    and   http://realini.blogspot.ro/

This is one of the worst productions I have seen in…

-          I don’t know…ten years?

Generally I avoid looking at something I don’t like
And it must be stated that I did not have the masochistic urge to really absorb everything that was included in this failed attempt.

The National Theater for television has this initiative that is laudable:

-          There is a play on every Monday and we have had Yours last night
-          Next week there would be an adaptation of Goldoni
-          Seeing as I meet one of the actors at the pool and I know him to be an obnoxious, arrogant individual, there is little hope for entertainment in seven days’ time

Ion Luca Caragiale is acclaimed as our best writer.
And I am happy that for once I can cherish the critics’ choice, unlike in the case of Mircea Cartarescu that I do not number among my favorites, but he is the local proposal for The Nobel Prize for Literature.

Al Matale, Caragiale is a disaster.
But I am not sure why.

The author has genius, humor, insight and he has created some of the best comedies in The Stormy Night and A Lost Letter.
And yet here the result is a complete, utter fiasco.

First of all, the material selected was almost all wrong.
They looked at the letters and some stories that once “adapted” or better said destroyed and then thrown on the screen have fallen flat.

But the main contribution to this flop comes from what audiences would call here a “stellar cast” even if I beg to differ.
The public loves them, but I have been convinced of their limitations for decades:

-          Mircea Albulescu, Radu Beligan, Serban Ionescu and Florin Zamfirescu
-          The latter has been decent at moments, but I was never a fan of the other three
-          De mortuis nihil nisi bonum…notwithstanding that, I just hated their performances

Albulescu had been one of the most important teachers in IATC, the highest, best school in the land for future actors.
And if this was his style, the lessons he gave, the model he offered, I can only raise my hands in the air and say emphatically, as was his style for tens of years:

-          Jesus, Mary and Joseph…how is this possible??

The acting in this Yours, Caragiale was for me an example of the worst case scenario, a show case for students of

-          How Not to Act!

It was artificial, over the top, annoying, too much, exhausting, with heavy brush strokes and too ample gesturing and mimic
Instead of using the head and keeping cool, the protagonists- mainly the aforementioned Albulescu- opt for shouting and exaggerations.

The humor selected is negative and I venture to say among the worst that can be found in the work of Caragiale
At one instance two people talk about the pig they have eaten and one of them is asking if the pig grew in the meantime…

-          What do you mean??!! We just said we have eaten it!!
-          Absurd? Grotesque? Funny? I certainly did not think funny is the word

Then we are taken to Berlin in the company of this personage- played awfully by Albulescu- who is complaining and moaning about everything and anything:

-          I mean…from the food to the Brandenburg Gate, from the barber to the raw fish, from the cheese to the cakes
-          Come on! Give me a break and die already


That was on mind for most of this terrible rendition that was supposed to celebrate the genius of the author…

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