He lived with the desire of hiding his wounds from prying eyes and ended up in discovering his own way in life.
At the age of 6 Dragoş Dumitru found out what a psychical disease meant. His mother had been hospitalized in the Psychiatry Hospital and for Safety Measures in Săpoca (Buzău), and after a short period of time he received the diagnosis: undifferentiated schizophrenia, 3rd grade. He retired on medical grounds, and Dragoş was taken to a centre of receiving emergencies and distributed to an orphanage.
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Dragoş comes from a gypsy Hungarian father from Şercaia (Brașov) and a mother from Olteni (Teleorman), half Romanian, from her mother’s side, half gypsy, from her father’s side. He was born in Târgu Jiu, because his mother had worked in this city for a while and, at that time, she was still looking a stable residence together with him. His parents met one another in Poiana Braşov, a place near Şercaia village, in which Dragos’ mother worked at a bread factory. From reasons which not even Dragos knows or he does not remember anymore, the two parents couldn’t agree for a place in which to live in the new formula, together with the new born child. While the mother wanted to return to Teleorman, the father suggested choosing Fagaras area as a place for moving out. The two didn’t reach an agreement, and after a short time, when Dragoş was 1 year old, they broke up. After the divorce the mother took Dragoş and they lived for a period of time in Olteni, after which they established themselves in Buzău, when she found a job at the Factory of Closing Switches.
Dragos’ mother lived on her own even from her adolescence, after her parents died in an accident. She stayed in an orphanage, where she already attended high school classes, and then she had greater dreams. She wanted to become a lawyer. She went to Iaşi in order to take the entrance examination at the Faculty of Law, and the fact that she was rejected became the first shock that was going to trigger the disease. The 2nd event with a negative impact on the mental health of Dragos’ mother took place at the beginning of the 90s, when came into force the Order – law 54/1990, and the Factory of Closing Switches had to sack employees. Then she became unemployed, she entered the unemployment status and she could not recover anymore from this trauma. One day she set fire to the bachelor flat in which she lived with Dragoş – a place received from the state when she was employed at the factory from Buzău, for which she had to pay monthly rates to the representative organs of the country. Luckily Dragoş wasn’t during that time in the bachelor flat from Broşteni Street. The neighbours called authorities, of fear that she puts in danger the entire building, and Dragos’ mother was hospitalized, while he was sent to the orphanage.
He spent his childhood in the Foster care centres, and sometimes he returned to Broşteni, where he received his ex – neighbours support. He wanted to stay with his mother, even if this meant not to have what to eat, and he used to run frequently from orphanages. The parents of a child from the neighbourhood found out his story from their son and decided to offer all the support to Dragoş. They thought he deserves to be helped to go to school and have a good education. They supported him from all points of view, not only financially but also morally, they gave him advice, they helped him anytime he needed it and he became part of their family. He lived together with them for about 4 years, after which he had to re-enter the protection system, because he didn’t have other first degree relatives. He stayed for a period of time at the Foster Care Centre for Children – Râmnicu Sărat, but during this time he went for the weekend to visit either his family from the district of Broşteni, or some distant relatives from Verneşti village.
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In the gymnasium, Dragoş started organizing small high school events together with his classmates. He wanted to be heard and be liked by the people around him. As he assumed the organizational part, he was also the one who said all the poems and jokes. Then was the time when he realized that he liked to be heard, to be noticed. Nevertheless, he knew his past, he knew his situation and didn’t want to come out in front by means of his problems. He realized that he didn’t want to be pitied for, but he wanted to send emotions. After he finished the cycle of secondary education, Dragoş was moved together with other institutionalized children, in a social flat. There lived 6 children, 3 girls and 3 boys, together with a social worker. He could benefit from this house move due to the good learning situation, and also his behaviour.
His childhood problems influenced him so much that he wanted to help people, to convey them from his own life experience. He felt lost. He wanted to hide his past and at the same time to share it, so that he chose theatre course. He registered in the High school of Arts „Margareta Sterian” from Buzău at the profile „Actor’s art’’. He looked for the people’s sensitivity ever since he was little and he felt attracted to the classes of human profile. He wrote poetry in order to show his experiences in writing. It was a form of repression. All the context determined him to choose acting. When he finished the 8th grade, he thought he could do something for the people and be somebody else on the stage.
He started from a plan, from hiding himself, from creating an identity and he came to believe in all these. For Dragos was very important that during the training period should not lose his dream. He thought that the most important is that you can succeed in doing whatever you like and at the same time to give through this. He realized in that period that he must be ambitious and he named ambition in many ways: pride, childhood dream, the unstoppable desire for searching, a child’s desire, of a human being, to prove that he can, to confirm the affiliation to a group, to a society. This determined him to go further and he didn’t stop searching for answers in the world, or inside himself. Everything that meant an obstacle was changed by Dragoş in a personal ambition.
In the period of 2004-2005, somewhere in the 11th grade, he got out of the system of child protection. He moved to his countryside relatives, in Verneşti village, where he commuted daily in order to go to high school. Since his pre-university secondary studies completion he managed by himself. He remained on his own and decided to take the entrance examination at Acting, at ‘’Caragiale’’ Academy of Theatrical Arts and Cinematography from Bucharest (UNATC). He received pieces of advice from one of the high school teachers and he realized that this is the path which he wants to follow. He knew it would be difficult and that he would have to work a lot. When he arrived in Bucharest, in 2006, Dragos expected a few days of preparatory courses and a series of written practical exams. He went to the Capital together with other high school colleagues. Many had a well- established plan, a roof over their head and money in order to support themselves on the period of entrance examination. Dragoş wasn’t in the same situation. He stayed together with one of the colleagues for a short period of time, after which he had to manage alone. He was used ever since childhood to do this thing. Some nights he spent in the clubs, until late, together with other colleagues because he knew that in this way the time will fly much faster. Others he spent in the parks. He didn’t sleep very much at night, and in the morning he went to the training courses and then to the entrance exams. He realized that this is what he had to do in order to become a student in the Capital. It depended all his future on this week in Bucharest.
When he arrived at the Administrative Office of UNATC to submit his file, Dragoş found out about the possibility to candidate on the places destined for the young people of Romani ethny. Initially he saw it as an opportunity, only that he didn’t have the prepared file. His documents were missing which could attest the affiliation to Romani ethny. He had to return to Buzau in order to contact an NGO which could fight for the Romani people’s rights from Romania. But it was too late. He had a difficult registration. He didn’t have the necessary money for paying the tax, many documents were missing, but, in return, he had a burning desire to prove. He was about to lose the registrations. He was very close to come to take the entrance examination next year.
He received the understanding of those from UNATC and he could bring all the necessary documents immediately after the entrance exam. He applied for an ordinary place, without declaring a certain ethny. He passed through written and practical exams which checked him, among others, his knowledge about The History of Universal Theatre. For the applicative exams Dragos doesn’t remember the repertoire at all, but he says he is sure that he recited „A dishonest wife” of Radu Paraschivescu and „We want land” of George Coşbuc.
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In the foyer of the Studio of Casandra Theatre, a student theatre which hosted the entrance examinations at UNATC in the autumn of the year 2006, about 30 students were preparing their soliloquy, the poems and other texts for the exam audition. Dragos had fallen asleep. He was nervous, but also exhausted because of the fact that he had slept where he could do it. At a certain moment somebody came closer to him and he told him: „Mr Candidate Dumitru, wake up because you are next”. He trusted himself, being the graduate of a theatre high school, but he was afraid that he could not have the chance to enter UNATC. He didn’t have a backup plan, but he realized that it would have been better not to fail the entrance exam. He realized that in Buzău didn’t have where to return. His mother was institutionalized in an asylum, the bachelor flat in which they had lived was closed, and he didn’t have any income.
He went up the stage and everything he identified was a light beam. He couldn’t see anything, not even the committee, not the hall, but he could realize that he was on a theatre stage. He recognized the scenery, the spotlights, the entrances and exits defined by „trouser”, the black curtain used by actors as a landmark for entering the stage. He didn’t have time to realize too well what was going on because when he arrived in the middle of the stage those from the hall burst into laughter. Full of panic, Dragoş tried to pull himself together and to sit his audition. He was thinking that maybe the way in which he came dressed was not exactly ordinary for the examination committee. When he left Verneşti, his uncle, a musician who went to weddings, told him that he cannot make a fool of himself there, in Bucharest, and he gave him one of his suits – „cherry red trousers and a matching coat in the same colour”. In his legs he wore a pair of pointed lacquered black shoes. It was visible that the clothes were a few numbers larger, but at least „he was dressed nicely”. The moment was forgotten when they told him: „Come on, well, tell us something now”. He presented his monologue, and the committee reaction was: „If we fail you, did you think what you are going to do next? Will you try another faculty?” It was a standard question, at which Dragos replied: „No, I will certainly do this thing again, only theatre”. And even like this he thought. He told them that he is convinced that he can do this job and he will do it, not matter what happened.
In the moment in which the results were displayed he couldn’t go and check the grades he received. He was so afraid that he could not have passed, so that asked one of his colleagues to see for him. He immediately found out that he passed with 9, 75. He doesn’t remember exactly how he felt, he doesn’t know what he was thinking, or if he was aware about what was going on with him. He was shocked, but inside him he was very happy. He celebrated in the best possible way, together with all his colleagues – also the ones who passed and the ones who failed. Then he felt that his dream was shaping. He had ensured three years within the hostel from Alba Iulia market. He felt that he is really a student at acting when he participated at his first course, that of Universal Theatre History, in the Hall „Ileana Berlogea” of UNATC. He knew it was one of the important moments for his future.
***
On 23rd of March 2015 Dragoş turned 30 years old. He plays his life role further on, the role of a young faculty graduate, without parents. He still tries to have his place in this world. He thinks it is pretty interesting the role which he received. He is proud that he has gypsy blood and he would have liked to be at the crossroads of many cultures, but he realized that there are things which he couldn’t have chosen. They were given to him and he has to thank for them, to search for what he has better in himself and discover himself. The fact that even from an early age he didn’t have his parents support, that he came from an underprivileged environment and, at the same time, he was of Romani ethny made him always play a role. He had to be careful with the people around him and he couldn’t afford himself to make too many mistakes. His plan was not to share his drawbacks and the tragedies of life, but he came, up to present, to discover himself.
This article can also be read here http://corinanitescu.com/daca-te-picam-te-ai-gandit-ce-faci-mai-departe/
