Several of the interwar composers were still active in 1970, together with new younger composers. Their music is regularly performed in Romania and in some of the other communist countries, but it is not well known elsewhere. Some of the young composers have experimented with avant-garde styles that have not been well received by the guardians of cultural policy. Composers are urged to use folklore as their source of inspiration and to write compositions reflecting the cultural policies of the PCR.
THEATER
Theater has always played a vital role in the life of the educated Romanian, and regular attendance at plays, operas, and ballets is considered an essential part of his cultural and intellectual life. The performing arts, therefore, have had a faithful and critical audience in all urban centers, which has stimulated playwrights and directors. In cities such as Cluj and Brasov, which have sizable minority populations, Hungarian and German theaters thrive beside the Romanian.
Since the end of the rigid restrictions of the 1950s, the performing arts have been flourishing with talented performers, directors, and writers. The government has been promoting the presentation of Romanian plays, and Romanian playwrights have striven to compete for audience favor with the best of contemporary and classical foreign plays, which are regularly presented.
Among contemporary playwrights who have achieved critical acclaim at home and abroad are Paul Everac, D. R. Popescu, Horia Lovinescu, Iosif Naghiu, and Paul Anghel. Eugene Ionesco, although Romanian by birth, is generally considered a French playwright since he writes in French. Romanians, however, proudly claim him as one of their own, even though his plays do not follow the desired standards of form and content.
Most contemporary plays have been categorized by critics as tribunal drama in that they pass judgment on ideas or actions and follow a format where one or more characters take the role of the accused and others act as prosecutors. Some plays are in the form of confessions of wrongdoings or wrongthinking. Both forms lend themselves well to imparting a message. Pure entertainment plays are usually boulevard comedies. Historic themes seem to be popular and safe topics, particularly if they promote Romanian nationalism. For the most part, plays are of local rather than universal interest, for they deal with matters limited in time and space. They usually arouse interest outside Romania for what they reveal of the Romanian character and society rather than for artistic merit.
The tightening of cultural reins in July 1971 seems to have had a greater effect on the theater than on any other form of artistic expression. The management of several major theaters was changed in late 1971 following admission by the replaced managers of having favored artistic merit over ideological value in the selection of plays for their repertory. The new managers pledged themselves to presenting plays that contain a clear-cut message conforming to high political, ideological, and educational standards. They also pledged themselves to encourage young playwrights to write such plays. In the meantime, the plays selected for the 1971-72 season were almost all true and tried classics, devoid of any political implications. Romanian directors, nevertheless, have shown themselves in the past to be able to impart to the audience a great deal of political meaning through their interpretation of such seemingly innocuous plays.
The film industry has a long and venerable history dating back to 1912, when the first full-length feature was produced. The silent comedies of the 1920s compare favorably with those produced by the best film makers of the time. In the 1930s and 1940s, until the communist takeover, Romanian musicals and tales of suspense and of the supernatural were popular at home and abroad. Most of these films were produced with technical and financial assistance from France and other countries (see ch. 11).
Cultural restrictions in the 1950s and early 1960s prevented the Romanian film industry from taking part in the technical and artistic developments that were changing the film industry in France and other Western countries. As a result, films produced in Romania as late as 1970 were technically and artistically old-fashioned compared to those produced in noncommunist countries and even in Czechoslovakia. Most critics outside the country compare them to the good films produced by Hollywood in the 1940s. Nevertheless, several Romanian films in the 1960s have won prizes at lesser known international film festivals.