Theater Criticism in Search of Lost Identity. Stories of Professionalization: Book review

Book review: Miruna Runcan, Teatrul în diorame. Discursul criticii teatrale în comunism. Fluctuantul dezgheț 1956-1964 [Theater in dioramas. The discourse of theater criticism in the communist era. The fluctuant thaw 1956-1964] (București: Tracus Arte, 2019

Romanian Theatre Criticism during the Stalinist Era. Construction and Deconstruction of the Critical Discourse

The purpose of this paper is to capture the way theatre criticism changed once the communist regime was finally established in Romania. The focus is on the years of Stalinist reign, as they might be considered the most oppresive, especially in the cultural domain. The article aims, on one hand, to draw a  historical context in which the change occured, while, on the other, it analyzes the various ways Socialist Realism affected critical thinking, substituting  aesthetics for ideology in drama reviews and forcing critics to concentrate almost obsessively on the dramaturgy, in the detriment of the performance itself