The Nottara Theatre Festival

The festival hosted by Nottara Theatre, now in its second year, was born out of the wish of the people working in theatre to encourage audiences to come to the theatre and make them part of the whole theatrical experience

Luana Pleşea, 07.11.2014, 14:16

”The festival hosted by Nottara Theatre, now in its second year, was born out of the wish of the people working in theatre to encourage audiences to come to the theatre and make them part of the whole theatrical experience.”

This is what theatre critic and Radio Romania journalist Crenguta Manea said about the festival held recently by Nottara Theatre in Bcuharest. For one week in mid October, this theatre played host to an international festival that focused on these times of crisis, as the director of the Theatre, critic Marinela Tepus, described it.

The festival started right in front of the Theatre with an event entitled “Smile, click and…gong!” The show, staged by Mihai Lungeanu, started in the street and moved on to the theatre’s foyer and eventually in the performance hall. In the foyer, spectators had the chance to view a photographic exhibition about the first edition of the festival by photographers Maria Stefanescu and Sorin Radu.

The latter explains: “We selected a number of snapshots which we thought best captured specific characters and the actors impersonating them. I don’t really like it when actors are aware I’m photographing them because they may become tense and start thinking about the photo and not the role they’re playing. So I wait until actors really go into their characters before taking a picture, while making sure actors are not aware I’m taking their photo. “

For Maria Stefanescu, it wasn’t easy to choose the photographs in the exhibition: “There were so many photographs and you just don’t know which one to pick, whether to go for a panoramic image that shows the whole stage or for portraits of the actors. I wanted to please everybody, the actors, the director, the set designer. I believe people come to the theatre to see a star. So I chose to take pictures of the stars. “

The first day of the festival at Nottara Theatre saw the staging of Don Quixote, a musical written by Ada Milea and Mihai Maniutiu and directed by Mihai Maniutiu, while the soundtrack was composed by Ada Milea. The show enjoyed so much success with the public, that at the end of the festival it received the award for the most popular performance in the comedy section. Don Quixote was staged by the Liviu Rebreanu Company of the Targu Mures Theatre.

Alina Nelega, the company’s artistic director, tells us more about the performance: ”Don Quixote is more than a novel, it is a myth. It is a masterpiece of world literature and an archetypal work. A characteristic of such works is that, in one way or another, we can relate to them at every moment in our lives. I don’t think Don Quixote belongs to a specific time in history. I don’t think you find fewer crazy artists today than in the age of Cervantes and I don’t think the number of idealist people has decreased dramatically. The fact that the audience understands and is able to relate to this proves to me that I am right, at least to some extent. The performance by Ada Milea and Mihai Maniutiu does not tell the story of Don Quixote. What it does, however, is to create a universe where the individual, the writer and the characters are each looking for their freedom. It is a multi-layered show, a hermeneutical performance, where music, movement and image combine to make it a very pleasant experience for spectators.”

The Nottara Theatre Festival also comprised a competition section. Theatre critic Crenguta Manea was a member of the jury responsible for granting the best performance award: ”The competitive section saw a series of extremely powerful performances which made the task of the jury very difficult. Such examples include a show produced by the Odeon Theatre in Bucharest entitled Titanic Waltz, directed by Alexandru Dabja, a production of the Hungarian State Theatre in Cluj called Christmas at the Ivanovs directed by Andras Urban, and a performance staged by the Rubin Studio from Prague called Meet, which featured two young actresses with a great potential for comedy. So the jury had a difficult job choosing a winner. In the end, the best performance award went to The New Tenant for the show’s rigorous structure, excellent composition, the beautiful stage design created by Helmut Sturmer and the performance of the Spanish actor Francisco Alfosin and the Nottara actors Ada Navrot, Gabriel Rauta and Ion Grosu, who bring a lot of joy and dynamism on the stage. “

The New Tenant, which is written by Eugene Ionesco, was directed by Tompa Gabor and is one of this season’s premieres at the Nottara Theatre. At the award gala, theatre critic Doina Papp, the president of the Master Class Cultural Association, handed the young talent award to the actress Nicoleta Lefter for her role as Sarmisegetuza in Tudor Musatescu’s Titanic Waltz staged by Alexandru Dabija for the Odeon Theatre.