Theatre Director
In Carmen Lidia Vidu's theater, there are two distinct directions: a multimedia one and a social-political documentary.
The Project Romanian Diary started in 2016 marks the beginning of the documentary theater practiced by Carmen Lidia Vidu.
2023
“Fragile Sense of Hope”
I always hear that human nature is competitive, aggressive, selfish.
I want to see the opposite. I believe in the responsibility of each of us to ask ourselves what value we have in the lives of others. Our fragility is an invisible force that shapes our lives. Not every story has a happy ending. Trauma can't always be fixed or resolved, but it can be heard, understood, and loved.
To me, human nature is cooperative and generous.
The Fragile Sense of Hope is about those who find strength in their weakness and dedicate themselves to a better world.
I want to see the opposite. I believe in the responsibility of each of us to ask ourselves what value we have in the lives of others. Our fragility is an invisible force that shapes our lives. Not every story has a happy ending. Trauma can't always be fixed or resolved, but it can be heard, understood, and loved.
To me, human nature is cooperative and generous.
The Fragile Sense of Hope is about those who find strength in their weakness and dedicate themselves to a better world.
2022
“4 July 1977. The Unknown Earthquake”, documentary
Hundreds of people took part in an artistic demonstration to raise awareness of Bucharest's seismic vulnerability.
The performance “4 July 1977. The Unknown Earthquake” brought to the audience's attention a historical moment that was meant to remain hidden: the party meeting of 4 July 1977, just a few months after the great earthquake that shook Bucharest, when Nicolae Ceaușescu gave the order to halt repairs to consolidate the damaged buildings. The meeting was attended only by the project managers and architects in charge of the capital's eight sectors.
2022
“Humans. For Sale”, documentary
In 22 years, an 850 year old population in Transylvania and over 250 years old in Banat has been sold.
The sale of almost the entire German population of Romania to the Federal Republic of Germany is the largest human trade in 20th century Europe.
The individual prosecution files show the torment to which those who wanted to emigrate were subjected: they were intimidated, surveyed at home and at work, fired from their jobs. The Securitate violated human rights, including the individual's right to freedom of movement. Not infrequently, homeowners were tricked into handing over their houses to undercover officers through false bills of sale. Under Communism, Romania was a terrorist state that took its own citizens hostage.
The sale of almost the entire German population of Romania to the Federal Republic of Germany is the largest human trade in 20th century Europe.
The individual prosecution files show the torment to which those who wanted to emigrate were subjected: they were intimidated, surveyed at home and at work, fired from their jobs. The Securitate violated human rights, including the individual's right to freedom of movement. Not infrequently, homeowners were tricked into handing over their houses to undercover officers through false bills of sale. Under Communism, Romania was a terrorist state that took its own citizens hostage.
2021
Lullaby. A Story about Maria Tanase
Bucharest
Maria Tănase, Diva-Brand of Romania! A theater show based on documents, sound testimonies and songs by Maria Tănase.
„MARIA TĂNASE. A STORY ”is a one woman show that presents a version about the life of the famous singer, with aspects of her personality that are less known. Authentic documents, archive letters, excerpts from interviews, her thoughts and memories, analogies with Edith Piaf or Frida Kahlo, all make up a coherent image of a beautiful and strong woman.
2021
Diary.BACĂU
Some historians claim that the appearance of the "Bacovia" Theater was a consequence of the communist policy of propaganda through culture. Others consider that the decision to found the Bacău theater was a natural, deserved one, a logical consequence of the development of the local theatrical movement for a century. What is certain is that history will record the day of August 1, 1948 as the date of birth of the "Bacovia" Theater.
2020
Romanian Diary. 1989
The I.L. Caragiale National Theatre of Bucharest
Romania has celebrated 30 years since the Revolution of '89.
On this occasion, we ask ourselves: how do we relate to history?
Where are the stories of the so-called "ordinary people", who often turn out to be rather extraordinary?
Where are the personal, subjective memories that make up the fine texture of a life, whether it is better or less well lived?
The project "Romanian Diary. 1989" is based on interviews with actors whose unfiltered opinions, whether personal, civic or social, are intertwined to provide the "bigger picture" of a historical event. The multimedia show will give viewers the opportunity to compose a powerful and very humane puzzle. History is contemplated in terms of personal biographies. Research, image and sound make up the multimedia universe that completes the stories of the actors.
On this occasion, we ask ourselves: how do we relate to history?
Where are the stories of the so-called "ordinary people", who often turn out to be rather extraordinary?
Where are the personal, subjective memories that make up the fine texture of a life, whether it is better or less well lived?
The project "Romanian Diary. 1989" is based on interviews with actors whose unfiltered opinions, whether personal, civic or social, are intertwined to provide the "bigger picture" of a historical event. The multimedia show will give viewers the opportunity to compose a powerful and very humane puzzle. History is contemplated in terms of personal biographies. Research, image and sound make up the multimedia universe that completes the stories of the actors.
2018
Power. Personal Stories
Timișoara
The event is a theatre concert. The visual and conceptual starting point is the work of the contemporary artist Gheorghe Fikl.
The performance utilizes different artistic mediums: theatre, concert, video projection, and painting, to create a show which is anchored in our immediate reality. It talks about the human perpetual, the sapiency, the human remembrance, and his fears. To sum, it is structured as an epic where we search for the LOCUTION, for where our humanity sunders, our angelic nature colligates.
The confessions are built almost exclusively on the life experience of the actresses, whether its junctures of happiness or pain, success and failure, trauma and depression, or alienation and belonging.
2018
Romanian Diary. Timișoara
The German State Theatre, Timișoara
The confessions are built almost exclusively on the life experience of the actresses, whether its junctures of happiness or pain, success and failure, trauma and depression, or alienation and belonging.
2017
Romanian Diary. Constanta
Constanța
Theatre risks to become irrelevant to the community and danger lurks our vanity and leads to isolation.
We only listen to opinions that confirm our own.
We only listen to opinions that confirm our own.
2016
Romanian Diary. Saint George
Saint George
"Romanian Diary. St. George " is intended as a communication vehicle, an invitation to dialogue.
How it influences our location and how much we influence the community to which we belong?
Is Theatre one of the pillars of the community?
2015
Me, a dollhouse
Romania
Carmen Lidia Vidu's performance boosts a schizoid, hypnotic atmosphere, aggressive and poetical at the same time. Video projections on the human body trigger both rejuvenating sensations and feelings of getting old in a showcase of senses becoming visible.
2014
The Fisherman and Its Soul
Bucharest
Short and well targeted, visually overwhelming, very well executed from an aural standpoint, The Seaful and Its Soul is the type of show which seems to end before it begins. After an extremely intense hour, viewers remain dumbfounded and have many unanswered questions.
2014
The Seagull. The Last Act
Bucharest
“The Seagull. The Last Act” is a concert-theatre show, a combination of opera music, post-rock, contemporary dance, and theatre.
2011
The Little Prince
Bucharest
A theatrical poem about loneliness.
The set-up is a multimedia installation where actors are presented as baroque paintings video projected onto clouds, while the Little Prince is walking among the stars which function here and there as microphones. The sound of the play is distinguished as a classical piano with industrial noise highlights. The performance can be viewed as a multimedia fairytale book. To me, video projecting is a poem which I want to include in each show as words which aren’t included in the text but which I feel are thought by the characters and to which I give a visual representation.
2010
Stop Crying, Baby
Bucharest
Contemporary art show, multimedia performance. Obsession transforms you into a very sad and choleric person.
Some have an implosion. You cannot exteriorize your feelings, at a subconscious level there sometimes begins a self-destructing process, you make bad decisions, you surround yourself with the wrong, narcissistic people, you do stuff that you do not like, you humiliate yourself, you self victimize, you cannot stop crying for weeks on end, your mind is an endless loop of scenarios, words, possible scenes going on over and over again until you wake up in the morning, in the kitchen, in the shower, in the pub, at the market and you dream you are flirting with someone else.
2009
C’est pas une chanson d’amour
Bucharest
Multimedia performance, ArtLink production. A show about how Bucharest is no longer a love story. A kaleidoscope performance with a mixture of images, music and intense feelings, recoveries or nervousness as in real life. Among the many “constructions” of Bucharest, “C’est pas une chanson d’amour” has a solid structure, lacking the red dot which conveys an earthquake risk. To watch and listen. To rewatch.
2007
The Nightingale and the Rose
Carmen Lidia Vidu becomes the youngest director of the Bucharest National Theatre.
The Show is something between a rock concert, poetry show and multimedia happening.
Oscar Wilde’s famous tale is thought out as a video poem. A personal lecture, a multimedia performance about total sacrifice, in which the image, music and actors’ performance follow and filter diverse forms of emotion.
2006
[a bus station…]
Innovating performance, yet not innovating through aggressiveness and excess, but through concept, through the emotion that it creates in the spectator, through the quality of the means through which it transpires emotion. Because it is truly a performance which transpires emotion. At the same time, it is a performance which tells a story. About fear, about mistakes, about self-hate, about power and helplessness, about reality and non-reality, about pain and poetry. And about the power to give yourself and to let yourself receive. About the audacity of giving yourself and about the same audacity, maybe, to let yourself receive.
2006
I Hate Helen
Bucharest
“I Hate Helen” is not theatre! But surely it is something that announces the art form of future decades. I HATE HELEN” is a performance that uses new media means, musical mixes, animation, projections, and photography.
“I HATE HELEN” is not theatre or better yet it is not just theatre. It is a movie, it is Cartoon Network, photography, music, it transpires urban legends (snuff is a mere example), it is underground and anti-underground at the same time and it is a savory parody. All these elements taken aside are not prevailing, yet taken
as a whole, the actors’ performance added, are a novelty and I must say quite felicitous. It is a multimedia blend, chaos ultimately well-ordered by the media discourse parody glue. It is a cliche story about love and delusion transposed by new media means filtered through projections and processed through the imaginary.
2005
Bitter Sauce
Bucharest
It takes a photo of emotion. From the very beginning, the director chose to make a performance and not a show. By choosing to make an experiment she constructed her theatrical discourse in a series of photographies. The interest for photography is justified by the director’s choice for clarity and message disambiguation, through the corporeal attitude that photography presumes without leaving any room for interpretation: “If I say I am alone, I am afraid and I love you, I do not want to express anything more than that. We are living the present time, here and now, without referring our emotions to the past or the future. I do not care for the biography of emotions, but for us to learn to feel them”.
