The 25th edition of the National Theatre Festival

One of the three theatre companies on the guest list this year was the Royal Drama Theatre of Stockholm

Luana Pleşea, 14.11.2015, 15:54

Organized by UNITER — the Theatre Union of Romania, the National Theatre Festival this year has reached its 25th edition. For this reason, the programme proposed by the artistic director Marina Constantinescu was very special. Over the course of ten days, 41 plays from Romania and three plays from abroad were staged, in addition to over 50 other related events, bringing theatre aficionados in large numbers to theatres in Bucharest.

One of the three theatre companies on the guest list this year was the Royal Drama Theatre of Stockholm, who came with ‘The Tiger’, a stage adaptation of Gianina Carbunariu’s play ‘The Siberian Tiger’.

Whereas one of the highlights of last year’s edition was the production of the musical ‘West Side Story’, this year the National Theatre Festival’ in agreement with the International Theatre Festival in Sibiu’ created the platform “Manifesto for dialog”, drawing on Bogdan Georgescu’s play ‘Anti-social’, premiered in June at the International Theatre Festival in Sibiu.

Stage director Bogdan Georgescu told us about his work with drama students: ”We started off in November last year with a workshop. I was mainly interested in the way human beings relate to one another, against the background of the media social phenomenon and its constant invasion. Two weeks ahead of the start of rehearsals for the performance, the episode in Cluj occurred, a scandal in a respectable high-school in Cluj, triggered by the fact that some of the schools’ pupils poured scorn on their teachers, in a secret group on Facebook. Teachers found out about that, hence the discussion revolving around 200 pupils having to be expelled from school. Starting from that story, we played for a month, we improvised and tried out all sorts of negotiation, debate and analysis techniques, and that’s how ‘Antisocial’ was born. I believe that, especially in the case of such projects, the stake is not necessarily to have somebody stand out, but rather, it is important that they learn how to work together and function together as a team, also after graduating from school”.

Starting November 3rd, for one month running, “Antisocial” is on tour of 21 towns and cities across the country. Here is Bogdan Georgescu again: “We want to visit people at home, in their communities, and create a debate space for them. We provide neither answers, nor solutions. Through the show, through the meeting at and after the performance, we seek to facilitate a discussion about the education system, what it means today and how it can be re-designed, so that we can bring it in line with the realities of the year 2015.”

“This show is about my mother, (…) about my mother who suffers from Alzheimer’s – about my mother whom I have not lost — about my mother, who, nonetheless, has lost me, even if she is still beside me. How can you capture such a heart-breaking situation?” says stage director Mihai Maniutiu in the argument of ‘Vertigo’, the guest performance at this year’s edition of the National Theater Festival. A deeply touching show, choreographed by Vava Stefanescu and Andrea Gavriliu, who are also the protagonists of the production staged by the “Aureliu Manea” Theater in Turda.

With details on that, here is choreographer Vava Stefanescu: “ ‘Vertigo’ is a choreographic show, not a theatre performance. It is a visual show. It is Mihai Maniutiu’s poem recited by actor Marcel Iures, but there are also the texts which bodies write during the show. As far as the theme is concerned, when we started the rehearsals, we felt like crying all the time. But then I found that sorrow and sadness and suffering were so sublimated that they no longer affected us as actors, that we were attuned to the theme. And, as Mihai Maniutiu says, it is not the actor who cries, but the audience. I don’t think the show is about disease, it is about the loss of identity, the impossibility of recognizing your own identity or the other people”.

To conclude, here is the opinion of theatre critic and professor George Banu, settled in Paris, a guest of the 25th National Theatre Festival, where the productions were selected by theatre critic Marina Constantinescu: “I think that Marina Constantinescu’s option is an interesting option. She made a wider selection, doubled the number of performances and thus succeeded in bringing together all generations that have polemic relationships. The festival seems to me to be a place of reconciliation. This panoramic option is linked to a jubilee, an anniversary and I think it is welcome.”