
photo by Vadim Ghirda
You may be wondering why I’m writing so much about Alina Serban? Am I being paid by Hollywood (or Media Pro)? Am I in love? Have I got nothing better to do? The explanation is simple: when I went to speak with the magazine Decit o Revista they asked me what I was working on and I said “Alina Serban”, and they said “Can you do one for us too?”. So I did and here it is. Meanwhile, as an update to the article, my spies tell me that Alina is now in London attending an audition at RADA, the top British acting school.
It’s eight fifteen in the morning and I am hurrying towards the underground station at Piata Romana with Alina Serban, the dynamic young Roma actress. Alina has a puppet show at nine o’ clock at a kindergarten in the Militar area and we’re running late. We squeeze into the commuter crowd, change at Piata Victoriei and get another train to Crangasi. She calls her colleague Elena Rotaru, Continue reading
An Actress to Watch Out For
Whenever a great Romanian actor dies someone tells me that this is the latest chapter in the decline of Romanian drama. Romanians can be very negative about their future and this negativity is projected onto the arts where they tend to see a glorious past and a miserable future. But I am not Romanian and I don’t share these views.
I am from Edinburgh, a city which hosts the world’s biggest theatre festival but is actually a deeply un-cultural place where alcohol and football are far more important than arts. (If you want to understand Scotland, read Irvine Welsh.) Like most of my compatriots I know little about acting and have no comment about the ancient Romanian actors whom people here hold so dearly. But whenever I go to a Romanian play or film, which is rarely as I am unable to resist the escapist attractions of Hollywood, I see great young actors. I recently saw Periphery and was mesmerized by the charisma of Ana Ularu. Continue reading →