Miruna Runcan — Celebrating boldness, tenacity, and beauty at Reactor 10!

The year 2024 marks 10 years of fabulous Reactor activity, and the very year we rolled out Season #10 under the delightful banner Make a Wish. One of those wishes was to create a collective book capturing a slice of the history and journey of this wonderful space over the past decade. We invited Miruna Runcan (theatre professor and critic), one of the lovely people who have cheered on and supported Reactor since day one, to share her thoughts on this book.

(Lines penned with rising excitement and a touch of cold sweat on December 2nd, 2024, in an utterly chaotic Romania)

Reactor 10, the album book—co-authored collectively, coordinated by Ioana Hogman, and visually brought to life by Mihai Păcurar—is, at first glance, wonderfully shocking in its... modest pretension. Its cover, symbolically of course, plays with simplicity: a blue spine and a dusty black photo on both sides, suggesting a beautifully rumpled stage carpet or a simple layer of tar hardened before being smoothed out. You might say it looks like those old-school A4 cardboard notebooks, where local town halls once lovingly inked in births, baptisms, marriages, funerals, sales of goods, woods, or livestock, loans between neighbors, budgets, or natural mishaps and their quick fixes. Or, if we scale up the book's dimensions, it feels just like those school registers that middle and high school teachers would proudly tuck under their arms on their way to class—to take attendance, mark absences, give grades, or calculate averages.

There is no doubt that this design is highly intentional, as it resonates perfectly with the illustrations which... are not from the vast array of shows Reactor staged over the decade, as you might expect! Instead, with the exception of a double-page creation titled "A History of Collegiality" by the exceptionally talented actress-author-graphic artist-muralist Lucia Mărneanu, they are artistic photographs capturing cozy corners of the venue, angles of the house and yard, forgotten props or costumes, a stone, ivy on a wall: precious fragments of a memory beyond memory, quiet moments encapsulated as if by chance in amber, sometimes in black and white, sometimes in color. One of the first of these evocative crossover photos, depicting the empty seats of an audience waiting to arrive, is beautifully titled by Mihai Păcurar "A Ritual History of Objects"—and it opens up, like a vector, a participatory map. In fact, every single image is accompanied by a charming mood-commentary written by a team member or a constant collaborator.

Indeed, the entire volume is crafted with a sober minimalism, meant to gently sweep aside—or perhaps, for those who know the place well, send out of the yard—any overly sugary nostalgia, self-praise, or self-pity. It feels as though the central axis around which the sections of the book are built, layer by layer, is actually work over time; theatrical and para-theatrical work, working with time and with oneself. The team and Ioana Hogman define this "oneself" both individually, person by person, and collectively, side by side. And the voices beautifully intertwine! This is precisely why, despite its sleek sobriety, the book is such a friendly read, always opting for an intelligent mix of dialogue, confessions, and a lively cross-pollination of ideas and memories (the shows selected for SONAR—just one per year, not all of them—are looked back on retrospectively from different creative angles and wonderfully recontextualized).

What I find truly impressive in this playful, free-spirited cocktail, in this cozy chat-like atmosphere where the reader, spectator, and friend are invited to join in, is the critical spirit, no matter how subjective the view. Whether we look at Oana Mardare's "performative recollections" or those dedicated to the evolution of the space written by her and Doru Taloș, or when larger groups gather to debate specific themes (the political direction, the evolution of management styles, collegiality, archiving—I absolutely adore the title SONAR—the audience, and so on), the critical and self-critical spirit never takes a break! Which, let's face it, is quite a wonderful achievement.

Somehow, through the voices we meet here, some in lively discussions and debates—Petro Ionescu, Mihaela Michailov, Alexa Băcanu—others in individual contributions—Oana Cristea Grigorescu, Selma Dragoș, Olivia Grecea, Leta Popescu, Dragoș Mușoiu, Raul Coldea, Ioana Hogman, Rarița Zbranca, and again Alexa Băcanu—this time analyzing, in the end, the succession of futures of past presents—the core strengths that define Reactor slowly come to life: fresh dramaturgy (whether author-driven or devised), a vibrant openness to research and bold experimentation, a dedicated program for debuts, a genuine passion (I'd even say care) for building (new) audiences, and a steadfast commitment to social and political themes. And this is true despite a few notable absences, at least for me, such as Oana Hodade, Maria Manolescu, or Cristian Ban, and especially the Mini Reactor with Delia Gavlițchi and Ana Cucu Popescu; I would have loved to hear even more actors' voices, but of course, you can't fit every story between two covers, no matter how hard you try!

This is not just a beautiful book, but a truly welcome one, as it captures a complex journey and celebrates a team that has brilliantly navigated a decade—something almost miraculous given the twisted socio-political-pandemic context. Yet, it happily and honestly pulls back the curtain on this miracle, revealing, without pretense, the aspirations, ideas in motion, hard work, moments of confusion, contradictions, tough decisions, headaches, dreams fulfilled and dreams lost along the way, friendship, love, love, stubbornness, love, love. Da capo!