Marin Preda, dramaturg: o chestiune de subtext

Marin Preda was a canonical Romanian novelist, also interested in the art of writing plays. Martin Bormann (1968) was his first attempt, followed by a dramatization of his well-known novel, Moromeţii. The latter (Moromete’s Youth) was put on stage after Marin Preda had died.In an interview published in ”The Theatre” journal, the author confessed that he had had difficulty in writing drama, compared to narrative writing. The impediments were brought about by the relation between the text and the connotation, which was different from the one occured in novel. This study brings Marin Preda’s plays into discussion again, after many years of forgetfulness. Concerning the text-subtext problem and starting from the points of view expressed by Stanislavski, Baxter, Montgomery and Arundale, I tried to show how (and with what result) work the sliding identity and the discovery-hiding dialectics in Martin Bormann. On the other hand, Moromete’s Youth is marked by the closing of communication doors and relies on intertextuality. Even if Marin Preda was aware of the different meaning and impact the subtext had in novel and drama, the playwright was not able to completely part with the novelist and deal properly with a problem that came down to connotation or to relational and interactional connections.