“The artist in me doesn’t need the mirror, but the woman, does”, confesses Leny Caler in her autobiographic work “The Artist and the Mirror” (Universal Dali Publishing House, 2002). Just like a dedicated collector, she exhibits with infinite care her professional and sentimental memories, shedding light over the uncovered treasures, without leaving aside, however, the glass bell that hides them. Everything seems very clear, but at the same time untouchable, because Leny Caler doesn’t open a door to her world, she only narrates about what we could see, if that door would be open. And we must take her word for it.
Nothing exists per se, no event, no emotion, no human relation – everything is a reflection of her, of her thoughts, of her feelings and charms on a sometimes opaque, but so graceful a surface of memory. From the lessons of “mechanic” interpretation which Lucia Sturdza Bulandra used to give her: “You say the line and take two steps to the left, say the line and take two steps to the back of the stage.”, to the real life lessons received from Victor Ion Popa and G. Timică or the unrequited love, about which she talks with coquette decency, everything in this book is a sparkling mirroring of the actress who conveyed the norm of beauty during the inter-war period.
Camil Petrescu, Mihail Sebastian, Tudor Mușatescu and George Varca are but a few of “the close friends” she talks about in “The Artist and the Mirror” and we don’t find it hard to recognize the actress who became a character in “Patul lui Procust” (“The Bed of Procustes”) like an intertwining between Emilia and Mrs. T or in Corina from “Jocul de-a vacanța” (“The Holiday Game”) – a play is said to have been written by Mihail Sebastian in his attempt to demonstrate her he could write theatre as well. Leny Caler herself is proud of her “successes”, which however she dresses in the modern and often hypocrite clothes of the discourse about personal development. Nevertheless, the pages about Ripensia, Camil Petrescu‘s favourite football team, the ones about the days in which he would read long passages from his novels, from the war poems, which Leny would listen to eagerly, charmed by “his behaviour, so personal, so alive”, are full of colour and poetry. “After a while, Camil realized my lack of knowledge in almost every domain and started getting preoccupied with my culture. He would always come with a new book and asked me to explain what I had understood from the last one.” Enthusiastic over chiromancy and graphology, he was the one who intuited or saw the feature of character that was to determine Leny’s life – the sentimentalism. Camil Petrescu would also bring his plays, showing her ways of interpretation, very modern, in relation to “a deep interiorization and focus, a game of the hands meant to suggest a certain feeling and, most of all, not to highlight lines by raising my voice in a strange manner, very different as to what was being taught at the Conservatory.” However, he was not the most flattering mirror: “He was often satisfied which my achievements in theatre. Unfortunately, it was not me, but other actresses who played parts in his plays.”
Her “kind friendship” with Mihail Sebastian is also presented through the perspective of her evolution alongside her timid friend. “Mihail Sebastian was not only a gifted playwright, but also an excellent narrator and lecturer”, with a passion for Shakespeare’s work, which he knew and analyzed in depth and whose sonnets had “admirably” translated. “He was a great connoisseur and very keen on classical music. Thanks to him I started to learn and get accustomed to the great composers of the world and to love Mozart’s divine music, his favourite composer, who became my favourite as well, forever.”
Geroge Varca was, according to Timică, Leny Carver’s second great partner, comrade as well as “friend”, the two met during Varca’s maturity period, when he was considered “the public’s idol”. They became close friends when they were both performing at Ventura Theatre, in one of Shakespeare’s play, As You Like It, when Varca’s almost magnetic personality fascinated Leny from their first encounter. “Gifted with remarkable features for the stage – physique of great beauty, perfectly proportioned, with temperament, a voice with mild timbre, a captivating charm, he had an innate elegance which could be seen in all his gestures and movements. His great soul was at the level of his great talent”, many times he being the one to go to the authorities to ask for support or scholarships for his younger colleagues; he even intervened once to stop the expulsion of his fellow Jews, during a period of repressive regime. They even were co-associates, founding together the Victoria Theatre, at the Military Circle centre. However, what was bothering Caler about him was his lack of “artistic responsibility”, the superficiality with which he studied his parts in which he didn’t believe with all his heart, always relying on the prompter’s intervention at the show and maybe most of all, the fact that it happened many times to forget his part, preoccupied to look in the first row for some new admirer.” Nevertheless, she envied his determination, his talent, his artistic force, understanding the impact his glowing and captivating personality had on the Romanian theatre, where he imposingly remained for eternity.
Scarlat Froda, columnist at ”Rampa”, talks about Varca’s “swan song”, about the testament he left for posterity, namely the terrible interpretation of his last part, the one he had hoped all his life to achieve, “his artistic dream” – Richard III. “The public had come to see their hero again; he was meant to fulfill his dream. In this general enthusiasm, a lightning suddenly striked the sky, came down on earth and transformed into a thunder, put an end to the one who had dared face the gods through an eternal creation. Varca had something else to say and could not enter immortality until he freed his soul of whatever was bad in it”. Froda is a more than discrete presence in Leny Caler’s memoir volume, although he was her husband and, at the same time, the only love officially acknowledged in her work. Despite this, she doesn’t dedicate a special chapter to him, but she includes him among other adolescent loves… Even the description of their relationship is dryer and lacking in “sentimentalism” and warmth than the references to her close “friends”. “During the 40 years of life I shared with Scarlat Fronda, I experienced the most varied and contradictory feelings. We loved each other and we cheated, we fought and reconciled, we adored and hated each other, admired and loathed each other, but… we never separated.”
This autobiography recognized as being subjective, presents us Leny Caler’s true portrait in the mirror of the past, which she chooses to invoke, but her soul doesn’t reveal his depths, but leaves behind an unsolved mystery, shadowed by a last regret: “I would have wanted to give more to my public, to my art.”
“You are a jewel, blue in the light of the eyes, with mosaics, metals and impossible paints in your blood, if you have such a thing. You must be made of glass and asbestos. You must have come from among minerals and we will ask whether you smell of platinum or amber. You are a material out of the series of brilliants, darkened by a reflex of serenity and your being is made of fiery clay.” (Inscription dedicated by Tudor Arghezi to Leny Caler, in a number of Bilete de papagal).
Translated by Alexandra Sarbu, MTTLC, 2nd year
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