INTERVIEW. "The hard battle goes into the living rooms." A well-known director describes how the members of a family end up fighting battles that are not theirs.

THE HARD FIGHT IS IN THE LIVING ROOM. A renowned director describes how members of a family come to bear fights that are not theirs. A family meal, which begins calmly, with food, stories, and questions about what everyone does, inevitably leads to politics and disputes. A moment that should be about family degenerates into a dispute about "globalists" vs. "sovereigntists". "People did not come with the intention to argue," says the director Gianina Cărbunariu in an interview for HotNews. "We end up in conflict because, inevitably, the outside world penetrates inside." "My hated beloved," the play written and directed by Gianina Cărbunariu, transforms a family gathering into a place of confrontation between different versions of reality. In the discussion with HotNews, the director shows how little these things do with family life and how much with the contexts outside them. Manipulation mechanisms are universal. Just one example: "There were people in the interviews conducted in Slovakia who said: 'Czechoslovakia was not invaded by Russians, but by Ukrainians'," shows Gianina Cărbunariu. You can become a member of HotNews Premium if you want to support independent journalism and - not to be offended - if you want to support European press. Don't "buy" a month or a year of subscription, but contribute to a public vigilance service from which we benefit in our communities, regardless of different political options. In "My Hated Beloved," two families meet during Christmas, on the occasion of a baptism. Ioana and Vlad reunite their parents: Marcela and Doru, who returned to Romania after years of work in Italy, and Iulia and Ștefan, medical professionals with a comfortable financial situation. Sabina and Victor, the future spouses, and Radu, Vlad's brother, an independent journalist, join them. Family discussions quickly move from trivial matters to Revolution, politics, or conspiracy theories spoken by characters like Călin Georgescu. Each brings their own beliefs and sources of information, and the differences between them become increasingly difficult to ignore. Radu tries to introduce the perspective of the journalist and fact-checking, while phantom characters like Elena Ceaușescu, Anna Báthory, and Jean Pârvulesco appear in the living room. "The fight in the living room is a mirror of the contemporary world." "The hard fight is in the living rooms" is one of the powerful repetitions around which your play is built. Why did you choose the family, and not the political scene, as the place to talk about polarization, extremism, and disinformation? The discourses of the different actors visible in public, which incite hatred for years, as well as the policies that have led to serious social inequalities, the precariousness of the education system, the weakening of defense mechanisms and the valuation of critical thinking – all of these have created the fertile ground for such confrontations. We have become unable to listen to arguments, we are often sensitive only to opinions that confirm ours. "The fight in the living room" is a mirror of the contemporary world. The inaction of the state and extremist parties that mimic interest in communities. In the play, Ioana's parents are not caricatures: they are people who left Romania, worked abroad, and left their child at home, but have a distorted view of present-day Romania. It was important for you, the spectator, to be able to understand the person behind a belief you consider absurd, perhaps even to empathize with them? For other plays I have done in the last 15 years, I have conducted many interviews abroad (in Germany, Italy, Spain) with people who left Romania, the seasonal workers being the most disadvantaged categories of this migration process. A play done in Sibiu in 2017 – "Do you speak silence? Sprechen Sie Schweigen?" – was, for example, about the silence, abuses, and exploitation in the meat industry, construction, agriculture, or domestic care in Germany. Through the way I represented the people I talked to on stage, I tried to respect their dignity and capture the power mechanisms behind these stories. We are a country from which a mass has left, we practically have relatives in our families who have decided to build a life elsewhere. They are people who actually had a lot of courage and who, without support here, took their destiny into their own hands. In the play there is also such a family of people who worked hard, made personal sacrifices, and naturally accumulated frustrations related to their status, rights, and even their identity. Because the Romanian state has not yet realistically made the effort to gather this part of the diaspora, has not represented it and has not supported it, this empty place has been occupied by extremist parties that offer simple stories, mimicking interest in these communities. However, there are also the characters Victor and Sabina, who deliberately exploit the fears and vulnerabilities of others. How much of the success of propaganda belongs to the propagandist and how much to a society that was already prepared to believe what is told to it? Characters like Victor and Sabina exploit the given situation; they sense the wave of dissatisfaction, frustration, fear, and confusion and channel it in the direction that serves them. They occupy the empty place left by the state institutions. The arrogance of "other camps". In the play, almost all the conspiratorial narratives that have circulated in Romania in recent years appear: Călin Georgescu, "globalists", vaccines, eugenics, the war in Ukraine, Soros, nostalgia for communism. How did you decide what to include and what to leave out in the play so that the play does not become simply a catalog of fake news? The dramatic frame in which they appear is that of a family gathering. People did not come with the intention to argue and that is why they try to moderate or even hide their true opinions. They end up in conflict because, inevitably, the outside world penetrates inside. The conspiratorial stories, the disinformation circulating in the public sphere have been chosen according to what we all considered relevant to tell a story about people who, in essence, are good, but end up doing harm to others, because they are no longer able to listen and speak about things that are truly important to them. The characters who come to believe in conspiracy theories are not presented as caricatures, but have their own motives, frustrations, and vulnerabilities. How difficult is it for an author to build a character whose beliefs you do not agree with, without simplifying the story and without justifying the beliefs? We tried to understand the personal stories behind these discourses taken from frustration or fear. On the other hand, the "other camp" in the play is not deprived of arrogance, prejudices, a superficial or lacking understanding or empathy for real situations. When all the points of dialogue are weak or artificial, the battleground is already prepared. Radu's appearance enlarges the living room. At one point, Radu breaks away from the story and speaks directly about the press, money, propaganda, and the difficulties of independent journalism. What did you want to change in the relationship with the spectator at that moment, when a character no longer speaks only within the story, but starts to speak directly to the public? Radu's character, the investigative journalist, is the only character that appears and remains among the spectators until the end. At the moment of his appearance, the living room enlarges, it encompasses us, those in the room, we all come to the same table, thus becoming a public square. His intervention interrupts the fiction on stage; direct address to the public appears as a necessity, as an attempt to understand together what role they play in the new reality we live in. I would like to emphasize that what the character says in this intervention is inspired by the report "The State of the Mass Media in Romania on the Eve of the Super-electoral Year 2024" (Center for Independent Journalism), there are even phrases quoted from this material. We have followed many of the interventions of investigative journalists from the country and abroad related to their unequal fight to inform. The words therefore come from reality and address this reality. I believe that the journalists working in this fight to defend democratic values must be supported by the entire society, otherwise we will sink into this sea of disinformation and manipulation. Have you said that the journalist is in a deeply unequal fight with the avalanche of simple stories delivered by propaganda? Can journalism win this fight? Or must we get used to the idea that verified truth circulates more easily than well-packaged lies? Beyond fatigue, frustration, precariousness, the fight with algorithms, propaganda, and disinformation, journalists who respect their profession are still there. They ask questions on our behalf and perform an essential public service. During the election period, investigations from the independent press that tried to put information face to face were a compass for many of us. It continues to be so. However, the success in this confrontation does not depend only on them, but also on us, as a society. How was this possible? The play is built around people who can no longer speak to each other. Do you think dialogue is still possible with someone who lives in an information universe completely different from ours? I believe that a lot of empathy, patience, and strategies will be needed to remake a social fabric torn for years. It is not by chance that the moment of the shooting of the boards from the National Museum of Art in 1989 appears in the play. How was this possible? How much do we still know about those who committed such a disaster? All these unresolved things from the past, everything that is not discussed publicly, communicated transparently, risks becoming a pretext for conspiracy theories and exploding in gestures of frustration and rage. The mechanisms of polarization in Slovakia. Romania is not the only country where this happens. You staged "My Hated Beloved" in Slovakia. What did you discover there about the mechanisms of polarization that are not specific to Romania? The mechanisms are similar, and one of them is the interpretation of the past, including the recent past, through a lens that serves the interests of the propaganda of the parties or extremist movements. One of the fabricated stories is that related to the USSR invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. There were people in the interviews conducted in Slovakia who said: "Czechoslovakia was not invaded by Russians, but by Ukrainians". Looking at Romania today, what frightens you more: the number of people who come to believe in conspiracy theories or the fact that there are politicians, influencers and businessmen who have learned very well how to exploit these beliefs? Both. But what frightens me most is the chronic underfunding of education – this is one of the key elements that pave the way for the success of a populist politician (or such an influencer). Intention is not to polarize or give lessons. There is also the risk that a play like "My Hated Beloved" may reach people who are already convinced by what you say. How can theater reach the other? There is this risk, obviously. And here we arrive at the situation in culture, another underfunded and politicized field for years. Unfortunately, there is no national infrastructure that ensures the distribution and access to plays or other artistic events in diverse environments (including in rural areas). When we talk about social inequalities, this is one of them. Instead of talking about inclusion strategies, extending distribution networks, developing audiences in disadvantaged areas, cultural education, instead of trying to build something long-term, in the public space politicians speak more and more loudly about self-financing in culture, about dismantling or appropriating cultural institutions. Artists can do a lot, but just like journalists, they cannot save the world overnight. Political will, a coherent, inclusive cultural strategy, a vision for society and the role of artistic, humanist education in this construction is needed. As for me, my intention is not to polarize or give lessons. My questions concern the mistakes of the recent past that brought us to this point, the lessons we have not learned, the bitterness that deepens between "winners" and "losers," the antagonism between different social classes and professional groups through public discourses that incite hatred. Each camp has its pitfalls, certainty that justice is on its side, and that is what makes them want to judge, judge superficially or even despise the other camp. How do we get back to the table and build something together? – this is the question the play asks, without claiming to have an answer. And, after all, who is the "hated beloved" in the title? The person we are at the same table with who votes differently than us, the person who manipulates us or our own inability to see the other as a person? All of this. Sometimes we can see them when we look in the mirror.