Nicoleta Esinencu is a playwright and director born in 1978 in Chişinău,

Moldova Moldova, officially the Republic of Moldova, is a Landlocked country, landlocked country in Eastern Europe, with an area of and population of 2.42 million. Moldova is bordered by Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east, and south. ...

. She became famous as a result of her 2005

monologue In theatre, a monologue (also known as monolog in North American English) (in , from μόνος ''mónos'', "alone, solitary" and λόγος ''lógos'', "speech") is a speech presented by a single character, most often to express their thoughts ...

''FUCK YOU, Eu.ro.Pa'', which generated controversy in Romania and Moldova. She worked in a theatre in Chişinău before founding her own company and has directed plays across Europe.

Early life

Esinencu was born in 1978 in Chişinău,

. Her parents were Antonina Esinencu and Nicolae Esinencu. She studied theatre and stage design at the Moldovan Academy of Music, Theatre and Fine Arts.

Career

Esinencu writes about her country, a

post-communist Post-communism is the period of political and economic transformation or transition in post-Soviet states and other formerly communist states located in Central-Eastern Europe and parts of Latin America, Africa, and Asia, in which new governments ...

state now part of Europe. In collaboration with Mihai Fusu and Dumitru Crudu, Esinencu wrote the play ''A şaptea cafanã'' (''The Seventh Coffee House'') and toured it around festivals in 2001. She then worked at the Eugen Ionescu Theatre in Chișinău and founded an alternative theatre venue called Teatru Spălătorie (Laundry Theatre), which closed in 2018. She has directed various projects at the

Hebbel am Ufer The Hebbel am Ufer (HAU) is a German theater company and international performance center in Berlin. It has three physical locations (HAU1, HAU2, and HAU3), and a digital theatre (HAU4). History HAU was founded in 2003, before the 2003/04 season, ...

in Berlin. Her 2018 play ''Rest of Europe'' premiered at the Schauspielhaus in

Graz Graz () is the capital of the Austrian Federal states of Austria, federal state of Styria and the List of cities and towns in Austria, second-largest city in Austria, after Vienna. On 1 January 2025, Graz had a population of 306,068 (343,461 inc ...

. Esinencu drew attention with her

''FUCK YOU, Eu.ro.Pa'' in 2005, winning the Romanian Dramacum theatre award. Framed as a daughter telling her father why she does not want to enter a Moldovan essay writing competition, it triggered controversy in Romania and Moldova for its frank discussion of post-communism, Moldovan society and the idea of Europe. This led to Esinencu being referred to as the "angry voice of Moldova". The performances in Moldova were renamed ''Stop Europe''; nobody under 16 was permitted to attend and the text has not been released in Moldova.

Early life

Career

Selected works

References

Further reading