Alexandru Davila – The Project as Work of Art. The Father Complex

Abstract

Taking as a central focus the complex figure of the famous Romanian playwright Alexandru Davila, this paper follows the line of his life and career, from his aristocratic origins to his family relations and from his revolutionary activity as an intransigent theatre director to the plays and literature he wrote. A special accent is put on his best text, Vlaicu Vodă [Prince Vlaicu] a historical play, classical in its construction but very modern due to the psychological refinement manifested by the protagonist, as well as from his doubly meaningful physiognomy – he was a voivode in times of dark adversity, but also, from an archetypal perspective, a tragic hero of certain historic immutabilities. Forced to act prudently under the threat of a catastrophic failure, Vlaicu capitalized, in a refined manner, the experience of the Romanian people itself, which had become accustomed, due to the hardships of history, to keep silent and endure in expectation of an occasion appropriate for action.