The story of the Roma girl who discovers at a very young age the differences of race and environment. She manages to make her way through life and transform her complexes into determination and motivation through the power of a therapeutic exercise.
Alina Serban’s autobiographical performance hovers on the borderline between life and theater, between experience and confession, effecting an authenticity to the point of becoming a fragment of reality. The show impresses audiences of all ages by inviting empathy. The Best Child in the World speaks about the power of achieving the impossible and the effort to make peace with the past together with one's own identity, one's own life, one's mother, one's father.
The Best Child in the World is the first play by a Roma female director that entered the permanent repertoire of The National Theatre of Bucharest.
The Best Child in the World (2022), Romania. Created and performed by: Alina Serban. Artistic consultant: Andrei Majeri. Assistant director, dramaturgy consultant: Vera Suratel. Costumes: Cristina Milea. Set design: Miruna Balasa. Choreography: Razvan Rotaru. Director of photography: Boroka Biro, Catalin Rugina. Video design: Mircea Bogateanu. Music: Lucas Dario Molina. Sound for video: Stefan Azaharioaei. Lighting: Roxana Docan.
Running time: 70 min.
The performance is followed by a talkback.
Free and open to the public. Suggested donation $10. Seats are limited, on first-come, first-served basis. Online registration through Eventbrite is required.
About
ALINA SERBAN is an award-winning actress, playwright and director. Serban grew up in Bucharest, Romania. Overcoming tremendous obstacles, including poverty and discrimination, she became the first member of her Roma family to graduate from high school and university. After acquiring a drama degree in Bucharest at the Academy of Theatrical Arts and Cinematography, Serban attended the Tisch School of the Arts in New York, and obtained a master’s from Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London.
As a professional actress, Serban’s credits include numerous Shakespeare plays under the artistic direction of Philip Parr (among them ‘Périclès, Prince of Tyre’), as well as productions presented at European theatre festivals (Turfed, The House Project, The Sun That Casts No Shadows). She acted opposite Benedict Cumberbatch in the BBC television series The Last Enemy, and made her debut on the silver screen with a supporting part in Written/Unwritten, a short film that won more than 20 awards. For her first leading role in cinema, Serban stars in Marta Bergman’s feature film Alone at My Wedding, which premiered at the Cannes International Film Festival in 2018 and earned her several Best Actress awards. She also stars as a boxer in Huseyin Tabak’s Gipsy Queen, a German-Austrian production set to make its world debut in 2019.
As a playwright, Serban pioneered Roma feminist political theater, with three plays to her name by the age of 29. She led the way in 2009 with Slumdog Roma (later renamed I Declare at My Own Risk), a poignant and often funny one-woman-show in which she recounts her life journey as a young Roma woman. In 2013, her second award-winning play explored the notion of Home. Three years later, she wrote and directed The Great Shame, Romania’s first play about the taboo topic of Roma slavery.
She lives between Bucharest, London and wherever filming takes her. Her work is driven by a strong sense of social justice, a desire to question prejudice and privilege, and the need to plant some good in the world — however small the seed.
ABOUT THE 2023 REHEARSAL FOR TRUTH THEATER FESTIVAL
The 2023 Rehearsal for Truth Theater Festival: Anew is organized by the Vaclav Havel Library Foundation and the Bohemian Benevolent and Literary Association in partnership with the Polish Cultural Institute New York, GOH Productions, Trap Door Theatre, Centre of Jewish Culture ŠTETL, Jan Mocek, Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, Palissimo Company, and Romanian Cultural Institute.
The program is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature. The festival is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, Arts and Theatre Institute in Prague, and Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic.