boyz and girlz
— Oana Stoica, Dilema Veche
Premiered on the 29th of October 2017 and still running at Centrul de Teatru Educațional Replika, Bucharest.
“If there’s more of us she will feel kinda obliged. It’s harder to say no to two guys.”
Parents, friends, school, doctors. When a girl is abused everyone’s knee-jerk reaction is to blame the victim.
boyz and girlz is a piece of social theatre that explores the tragic consequences of patriarchal values by exposing a society that tries to protect its teenagers through ignorance.
boyz and girlz follows a group of teenagers trying to find their place in a society where gender identity is enforced and in which they receive no guidance regarding consent, relationships, sexual education or mental health. The play explores the reactions towards an abuse, investigates the issue of collective responsibility and emphasises the importance of communication between parents, children and teachers and the necessity of sexual education in Romania.
Writer and Director: Sînziana Cojocărescu (Koenig)
Cast: Alex Călin, Florina Gleznea, Katia Pascariu, Oana Pușcatu, Liviu Romanescu
Set and Light designer: Hermina Stănciulescu
Music: Alexandru Suciu
Co-artistic director of BÉZNĂ Theatre: Nico Vaccari
Photography by: Nicu Lazur
Recommended for ages 14 +
Produced by Centrul de Teatru Educațional Replika in partnership with BÉZNA Theatre
Partners: Sexul vs Barza, Agenția Națională pentru Egalitate de Șanse între Bărbați și Femei, Colegiul Național George Coșbuc, Liceul Teoretic Benjamin Franklin
SEXUAL EDUCATION WORKSHOP
As part of the project we invited Adriana Radu, creator of Sexul vs Barza Sex Ed vlog, to hold sexual education workshops in two partner highschools focusing on issues of consent, relationships and commonly believed myths about sex. Unfortunately, reflecting the dire need for reform in the Romanian educational system, in one of the highschools Adriana was not able to hold the last session as the religion teacher and some parents opposed the idea of sexual education being offered to the pupils and pressured the highschool to pull out of the previously signed partnership.
Watch Adriana's videos about the project and her experience at the highschools here and here.
The text of boyz and girlz was published as part of the project and is available for free at Centrul de Teatru Educațional Replika.
— Oana Bogzaru, Yorick.ro
"However skilful Koenig’s text, the show excels, first of all, through her directing."
— Alex Mircioi, Observatorul Cultural
“boyz and girlz is a frontal text-confrontation with vulnerable topics - sexual education, consent, relationships of male sexual authority, violation of intimacy, perpetuation of gender violence - in a society where harassment and aggression are often, too often, tolerated, minimized and normalized.
In an educational context in which talking to students and pupils about sexual education is still a taboo, boyz and girlz becomes a framework of analysis and reflection that unfolds social anxieties and causes the explosion of stories of internalization of guilt by those aggressed.
boyz and girlz is a political and poetic text of a brutal and delirious realism that viscerally dissects the traumatic traces of abuse, the painful fragility of testimonies struggling to be heard. Struggling to be listened to. Pleading for solidarity.
boyz and girlz is a necessary text in Romanian dramaturgy, exploring extremely rarely represented topics in the performing arts. The text opens a dramatic and narrative research field which is, now more than ever, incredibly needed. Gender violence involves everyone. We can not confine it, we can not isolate it, we can not segregate it.”
This project is co-financed by Administrația Fondului Cultural Național (AFCN).