In November last year, We recreated Many Good Men with a group of young adults in Bucharest. In just one week we made a brand-new show based on the same premise as the show we made in Edinburgh 2024. The premise of Many Good Men is: What would happen if two seemingly ‘ordinary’ young men were to witness an incel shooting? What if they didn’t know what an incel was and then in the process of researching that community and the wider ‘manosphere’ one, or both of them, became radicalised?
The Romanian participants set their story in the world of Trap music in Bucharest. They performed it themselves and they were absolutely brilliant!
So now we’re back for a week, guests again of the wonderful Teatrul Masca, (who are celebrating their 35 th birthday this year) and in partnership with Station Europe.
We’re working with the same participants we met in November to develop a workshop for them to deliver in schools for teenagers. This workshop will explore what ‘incel’ culture and the ‘manosphere’ is and then through interactive drama and forum theatre we will investigate the ‘everyday’ behaviours that normalise sexism and which can lead to extremism.
The new participants are coming to Bucharest from small towns and villages across Romania, and I’m so excited to find out what their knowledge and perspectives will be.
We will be releasing a short film in the coming months about the Many Good Men process in Romania. In the meantime, I wanted to share here a clip, which we won’t have space for in that film, but which is, I think, a really interesting record of a group talking about what they did and how these issues affect them as private individuals and Romanian citizens. It was recorded immediately after the show back in November 2024.
