Lukáš Jiřička & Robert Piotrowicz: Rancio
Man is an abyss. In his essence. Why is hate more creative than beauty? Written and directed by: Lukáš Jiřička Music: Robert Piotrowicz (PL) Voice: Vladimír Marek
Somewhere between philosophical western and Western philosophy, there stands the dark and skeptical hero Rancio – a literary alter ego for Romanian philosopher Emil Cioran, representing a loose re-interpretation of Cioran’s life and ideas. Rancio/Cioran is the last cowboy of the apocalypse, something between sage and madman. A prophet of the final days. The audio drama project Rancio is a sarcastic musical scowl straddling the boundary between electronic noise, metal, and western.
The musical drama composition Rancio was inspired by the life and writings of the skeptical philosopher Emil Cioran, who – together with Mircea Eliade, Eugene Ionesco, Mihail Sebastian, and Max Blecher – was one of the leading figures of Romanian modernism, although unlike these others, he never worked purely in literature, instead writing stylistically and precisely honed essays on the boundary between fragments and aphorisms. In the same way, the libretto for Rancio is composed of biographical and philosophical fragments, saturated with a critical and sarcastic view of mankind, history, or faith, as depicted by actor Vladimír Marek.
I have long wanted to work with Marek, but I didn’t know what text would best suit his disposition. In addition, out of purely personal fascination I had begun to study Cioran’s work many years ago, but the idea of honoring this thinker spent a long time fermenting within my mind, because I did not find the right actor who might express that mixture of inner laughter, cynicism, and violence in a perfect voice reflecting the deep layers of a varied life. One day, I saw the actor’s photograph in some magazine, and suddenly everything was clear and simple. Rancio and Marek had to be irrevocably brought together in a work of radio art. The choice of musician Robert Piotrowicz was the simplest choice of all – not only because of his explosive and highly dramatic music oscillating between noise, metal, and free improvisation, but also because of our shared love for this Romanian writer. And so the Romanian philosopher became a dark cowboy, a prophet of catastrophe, a loner with a cruel sense humor.
(dedicated to Josef Bolf)
Lukáš Jiřička