Join us as Ioana Hogman chats about the exciting world of playwriting and climate change!

In June, Reactor is thrilled to present our second premiere of 2022! "Habituare" is a wonderful new show based on a text by Ioana Hogman, a truly special playwright and dramaturg with whom we've loved collaborating on various projects. We asked Ioana to share a bit about her writing process and this exciting new play. Here is her delightful response:

I am just wrapping up an intense period of work, and I've promised myself to take a well-deserved rest and make time for all the lovely things I had to put on hold over the past year: my psychology studies, designing workshops for people outside the artistic world, and, above all, diving back into enjoying art! Regarding that last point, the past two years have been a bit dry, and I could really feel that in my writing. I need to absorb, read, listen, wander through museums, and, most of all, just stroll around and daydream. For my upcoming research, I want to return to a free, visceral style of writing. This year, I tried to push my limits by experimenting with more conventional forms that don't necessarily come naturally to me. I've gained some things and lost others, but I'm confident I can win back what was lost. I have wanted for a long time to write texts that aren't immediately mediated by a stage production. Although the audience, both as individuals and as a community, is always warmly present in my mind when I write, I would love to try writing at least once without being fully conscious of the performative act.

I believe a playwright can take on many roles, and mine has never been confined to a single direction or easily defined. It's probably too early for that, anyway! What I felt this year—perhaps paradoxically, since in this project we focused on environmental themes and climate change—is that the role I embrace most is simply being as close as possible to what people need right now. At the same time, I aimed to bring more warmth to my texts, to break away from the cynicism that comes so easily to me, and to balance out my obsessive focus on anxiety and mortality. To some extent, I think I succeeded! What I didn't quite manage, though I really wanted to, was to dive deeper into a community-focused space. There, I bumped into my own limits of individualism and solitude. I'm still trying to figure out if I managed to at least capture the tension of striving toward that beautiful direction.

I don't think my approach in "Habituare" can be strictly labeled as eco-dramaturgy, and generally, I tend to avoid fitting myself into specific movements. They interest me because I want to understand how people arrived at them and what role they play today, but also because of the absurd ways we sometimes use them in selfish, twisted manners that stray from the innocent need that sparked them in the first place. For me, fully adopting a movement like this implies a kind of activism that I don't necessarily set out to do, at least not directly. I recently started reading "Hyperobjects" by Timothy Morton, where climate change and global warming are described as omnipresent entities in our lives. In that sense, I think any text I write will naturally contain a form of eco-dramaturgy, though it is never directly verbalized either in "Habituare" or in my previous works. I am much more interested in how we wonderfully co-exist with these concepts and how we manifest their presence.

I believe theatre can find so many creative ways to foster a climate-aware dialogue! Again, I think this awareness should shine through in our actual practices, in the way the theatrical system works, and in how it chooses to collaborate with other fields. I still feel that, especially in Romania, with a few wonderful exceptions, theatre is completely isolated from other disciplines, particularly science. We often work in a bubble without integrating the real-world situations we co-exist with into our creative process. As for production means, it is still a shock to me to hear about the massive budgets of certain shows and see how easily we purchase things only to discard them afterward. There are artists, even here at home, who have embraced a different, more sustainable approach—both conceptually and practically—and I hope many more will follow their inspiring example! Also, I can't help but think about these huge budgets existing alongside the reality that so many talented artists are paid below a decent wage or expected to work pro bono.

When it comes to the future, I think we can talk about it in any way we like, keeping in mind that much of what we imagine is beautifully fantastical! In "Habituare," I started by anchoring myself deeply in science and ended up writing delightful absurdities. The post-human perspective interests me in the exact same way as the eco-dramaturgy I mentioned earlier. Otherwise, even when fully connected to the latest scientific theories, I believe the futures we imagine always carry a touch of fragility. And whenever we try to talk about the future, we are actually talking about the present—I don't know if we can do it any other way!

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"Habituare" is a production created within the cultural project "Solastalgia," proudly co-funded by the National Cultural Fund Administration.

The project does not necessarily represent the position of the National Cultural Fund Administration. AFCN is not responsible for the content of the project or how the results of the project may be used. These are entirely the responsibility of the beneficiary of the funding.