The National Theatre Festival at the end

“A selection like a mirror-image of what is going on today in the dynamics of the Romanian theater, ranging from small-scale shows to large-scale ones - Marina Constantinescu, artistic director of the 24th edition of the National Theatre Festival.

Luana Pleşea, 15.11.2014, 14:59

Actors, clowns, musicians, dancers and acrobats; accordion music, waltzes, old-time elegiac songs and traditional choirs. That’s how we might describe the show “Donka –a letter to Chekhov,” a joint production of the Finzi Pasca Company of Switzerland and the Chekhov International Theatre Festival, text written by the famous Daniele Finzi Pasca who also stage-directed the performance. Co-founder of the company Maria Bonzanigo wrote the music for the show, also creating the choreography, jointly with Finzi Pasca.

Eugene Ionesco’s “Rhinoceros”, stage-directed by Robert Wilson at the Craiova National Theater is another show of the National Theater Festival’s 24th edition, which can also be described as an event. Robert Wilson’s stage version of Ionesco’s play marked the closing of the Festival on November 2nd, and most of the guests had to spend a couple of hours on Craiova, in southern Romania. “The new stage version by Robert Wilson in Craiova is a triumph. Wilson understood that it was no longer a play of the Cold War. It was actually a state of mind…”.wrote theatre critic John Elsom.

Young stage director Bobi Pricop was assistant director to Robert Wilson for “Rhinoceros” and will now be speaking about the director’s relation with the theater in Craiova and with Ionesco’s text.

Bobi Pricop: “I believe he was mainly attracted by the actors he knew there, in Romania. He had two big moments where he had encounters with Ionesco’s texts, he even met him in the 1970s. That’s what it was. It has been an encounter, a collision I don’t really know how to describe in theory. It is this very collision between Ionesco and Wilson that breathes life into the show. That’s mainly because at one point Ionesco said he wanted Wilson to stage his plays. And that’s exactly what happened, at last, and I’m happy it happened in our country. I believe it has been an encounter we need to follow. It might as well be the starting point for other performances, but it’s all very clear Ionesco very much served Wilson’s vision and purpose.”

For the first time the National Theatre Festival has had an own production. It’s the famous musical ‘West Side Story’ staged for the festival by choreographer Razvan Mazilu, who has selected 21 young actors particularly for this show. Here is Razvan Mazilu about this musical and the subtitle ‘A Generation’s Manifesto’, an idea by artistic director Marina Constantinescu.

Marina Constantinescu: “We initially set out to do a musical workshop for the National Theatre Festival. But things evolved into something bigger and we eventually ended up doing this project, very dear to me, as it has a special significance. It’s a project about generosity, about giving a chance to a very talented generation, which sadly finds itself kind of being brushed aside in our theatrical world. West Side Story is in itself a manifesto; a manifesto about freedom, about peace, humanity, happiness and, youth. I believe this project fits very well with this young generation; it’s as if it were written for it.”

Romanian journalist Irina Wolf: “It seems a very good idea, in keeping with an international trend. Most of the festivals have a production of their own or co-productions with other festivals. Wiener Festwochen, Salzburg Festspiele have done the same, to mention a couple of the festivals in Austria…It seems that theatres were very crowded, particularly with young people. And I was very happy the youth showed such a keen interest in these shows, which weren’t attended only by students from the theatre faculty. I’d also like to mention the staging as excellent and I was happy to be in the new theatre hall in Otopeni. I would also like to refer to the livestream on adevarul.ro, with its daily broadcasts directly from the theatre hall. As the shows were available on the Internet at reasonable hours, they could be watched by the Romanians abroad, who could thus get a glimpse of the festival.

Organized by the Theatre Union in Romania, the 24th edition of the National Theatre Festival took place over October 24th and November 2nd. We recall that Radio Romania is a traditional partner of this event.