Roma playwright beats odds with one-woman show

[lightbird777]

When she was a teenager, Alina Serban, a Roma, never told classmates that she lived in a shack and never imagined she would one day study in New York, perform Shakespeare or showcase her own play.

In her young eyes, even university studies seemed far out of reach.

"Why am I lying to myself? Go to university? This is nonsense!" she cries out in her

Comments

[roseofjuly]

Less than 1%! Less than motherfucking 1%. ARGH

Good for her. It's awesome that she's using her craft to call attention to the plight of her people.

[sesmo]

This is such a win. It's true that there is a lot of anti-gypsy feeling in Eastern Europe, because they are the "other." A family friend was killed because he was mistaken for a gypsy (in Poland). Even my relatively liberal family had "gypsy stories." I hope that she publishes her play as a book, so those of us elsewhere can read it too.

[ladyanneboleyn]

I wish the Roma kids I worked with in the Czech Republic could see this show. They're so bright and inquisitive and they know there are amazing things out there, but they don't know how to get out of the situation society puts them in.