FEST_FDR 2011 [eng]

EUROPEAN FESTIVAL OF PERFORMING ARTS – NEW ROMANIAN DRAMA FESTIVAL TIMIȘOARA 7-15 MAY 2011

TIMISOARA NATIONAL THEATRE

FEST-FDR EUROPEAN FESTIVAL OF PERFORMING ARTS – NEW ROMANIAN DRAMA FESTIVAL TIMIȘOARA 7-15 MAY 2011

EVENT SUPPORTED BY THE MINISTRY OF CULTURE AND NATIONAL HERITAGE

Sunday, 8.05

Saturday, 7.05

11:00, Moruzan Room

19:00, TNTm

Debate: Force Entertainment: 25 years of theatrical experi-

Festival Opening Night

ment. Hosted by Cristina Modreanu. Event supported by

THE THRILL OF IT ALL

Forced Entertainment - United Kingdom (in English, subtitled in Romanian; PERFORMANCE section)

the British Council as part of the program New work, new audiences Book launch: Point zero for the theatre: 25 years of Forced Forced Entertainment, by Tim Etchell, translated by Cristina Modreanu. scena.ro & Teatrul Naţional Timişoara collection.

Book Launch: scena.ro. Hosted by Cristina Modreanu 15:00 and 16:00, Parking lot –Shopping Center Bega

THE DANCE OF CYCLING

Bicycle Ballet Company, UK (OPEN AIR section) 17:00, Studio 5

I HEREBY DECLARE UNDER MY OWN RESPONSIBILITY y Alina

Şerban, directed by David Schwartz, LUNI de la Green Hours Theatre, Bucharest (FDR section) 19:00, Main Hall TNTm

THE THRILL OF IT ALL

Forced Entertainment - United Kingdom (in English, subtitled into Romanian) (PERFORMANCE section) 19:00, Moruzan Room Nick Mancuso: FROM HOLLYWOOD WITH LOVE

SCHE DULE

21:00, Studio TMT Absolute Premiere: GOD IS A GANGSTER one man show Nick Mancuso, USA (performance in English, no subtitles; PERFORMANCE section)

Tuesday, 10.05

Monday, 9.05 11:00, Moruzan Room

Debate: New Romanian Drama from Underground to

Mainstream.

Hosted by Mihaela Michailov 14:00, Reading Room

NDC Workshops

National Drama Contest, coordinated by Nicolae Mandea 17:00, Sala 2

SLICES by Lia Bugnar, „Radu Stanca” National Theatre Sibiu (FDR section)

19:00, Mirror Hall, TNTm

Book Launch: Eugène Ionesco (Eugen Ionescu) on Stage,

in Romania, conceived and devised by Florica Ichim,

with an introductive study by Doina Modola. Hosted by theatre critic Crenguța Manea.

19:00, Main Hall TNTm

THE METHOD after Jordi Galceran, directed by Theodor

Cristian Popescu, Nottara Theatre Bucharest (INTERSECTIONS section)

13:00, Reading Room

Dezbatere: Romanian Theatre Schools Hosted by Mihaela Michailov 13:00, Reading Room

NDC Workshops

National Drama Contest, coordinated by Nicolae Mandea 17:00, TMT/TGST

GRAFFITI.DRIMZ by Alina Nelega,

directed by Alina Nelega, Odeon Theatre, Bucharest (FDR section) 18:30, Mirror Hall TNTm

Book launch: The Russian Avant Guarde – Dramaturgy

an anthology by Leo Butnaru. Hosted by theatre critic Doru Mareș 19:00, Main Hall TNTm

PLAYLIST by C.C.Buricea Mlinarcic

directed by Ovidiu Caiţa, North Theatre Satu Mare (FDR section) 21:00, Sala 2

THE PUBLIC EYE by Aurel Baranga, directed by Theodor Cristian Popescu, „Radu Stanca” National Theatre Sibiu (INTERSECTIONS section) 21:00, Studio TMT

CASA M, a stage play by Luminita Ticu, Coliseum Arts Centre Chisinău (FDR section)

Wednesday, 11.05

Thursday, 12.05

10:00, Reading Room

11:00, Moruzan Room

NDC Workshops: ÎN AER / UP IN THE AIR by Alexandra Pâzgu

Debate : Surviving through Culture: Osmego Dnia.

Stage director Mihaela Lichiardopol. Coordinated by Nicolae Mandea 10:00, Mirror Hall

NDC Workshops: ȘTIRI / NEWS by Viorel Cojanu. Stage director Sabin Popescu. Coordinated by Nicolae Mandea 13:00, Mirror Hall

NDC Workshops: PASĂREA ORNIC / THE WALL CLOCK BIRD by Șerban Foarță. Stage director Ion-Ardeal Ieremia. Coordinated by Nicolae MandeaRegizor Ion-Ardeal Ieremia.

Coordonator Nicolae Mandea

Hosted by Cristina Modreanu. Event supported by the Polish Institute Book Launch: Psychoterapolitics. An Anthology of New Polish Theatre. Hosted by theatre critic Iulia Popovici 10:00, Reading Room

NDC Workshops: ÎN AER / UP IN THE AIR by Alexandra Pâzgu Stage director Mihaela Lichiardopol. Coordinated by Nicolae Mandea 10:00, Mirror Hall NDC Workshops: ȘTIRI / NEWS by Viorel Cojanu. Stage director Sabin Popescu. Coordinated by Nicolae Mandea

17:00, Studio TMT

13:00, Mirror Hall

THE HOUSE OF THE PEOPLE by Bogdan Georgescu, active

NDC Workshops: PASĂREA ORNIC / THE WALL CLOCK BIRD by

art project towards social rehabilitation and creative learning. Author - Bogdan Georgescu, project coordinator representing the penitenciary - Ramona Dinu. An active art project by Generosity Offensive. Produced by „I.S. Drăgulescu” Association. Created with the support of Craiova Penitenciary, New Culture Center „Club Electroputere” Craiova, UNATC, Craiova University– Faculty of Theatre and Veioza Arte (PERFORMANCE section) 18:00, Main Hall TNTm

JACK THE SNIPER

by Radu Macrinici, directed by Gelu Badea, Teatrul de Nord Satu Mare (FDR section) 21:00, TMT/TGST

BLIFFED, by Gabriel Pintilei, directed by Alex Mihail, Odeon Theatre Bucharest (FDR section)

Șerban Foarță. Stage director Ion-Ardeal Ieremia. Coordinated by Nicolae Mandea 17:00, TMT/TGST

AS THYSELF by

Maria Manolescu, directed by Radu Apostol, Very Small Theatre Bucharest (FDR section) 18:30, Sala 2 Lobby

Book launch: KRZYSZTOF WARLIKOWSKI AND THE THEATRE LIKE AN OPEN WOUND. Work conceived and devised by Piotr Gruszczynski. Preface by George Banu. Translated by Monica Grădinariu.

Hosted by Cristina Modreanu.Grădinaru. Prezintă Cristina Modreanu

SCHE DULE 19:00, Sala 2 TNTm

10:00, Mirror Hall

ROŞIA MONTANĂ / PHYSICALLY AND POLITICALLY

NDC Workshops: ȘTIRI / NEWS by Viorel Cojanu. Stage director

writted by Peca Ştefan, Gianina Cărbunariu and Andreea Vălean, directed by Radu Apostol, Gianina Cărbunariu and Andreea Vălean, Cluj Hungarian State Theatre (FDR section)

Sabin Popescu. Coordinated by Nicolae Mandea 13:00, Mirror Hall

NDC Workshops: PASĂREA ORNIC / THE WALL CLOCK BIRD by 21:00, TNTm

TWINS by Pál Frénak, „Pál Frénak” Dance Company Paris/Bu-

Șerban Foarță. Stage director Ion-Ardeal Ieremia. Coordinated by Nicolae Mandea

dapest (INTERSECTIONS section)

13:00, Moruzan Room

22:00, Victory Square

Coordinated by Yoshihiro Kurita

THE TIME OF MOTHERS

17:00, Studio 5

Teatrul Osmego Dnia, Poland (OPEN AIR section)

Workshop: FROM NŌ THEATRE TO SHAKESPEARE

ICH CLOWN by Vera Ion and Sorin Poamă, TureT company (FDR section)

19:00, Studio TMT

9 DEGREES IN PARIS, written and directed by Peter Kerek, ACT Friday, 13.05 11:00, Moruzan Room

Debate THEATRES FACE TO FACE WITH THE NEW ROMANIAN

DRAMA. Hosted by Ada Hausvater

Theatre Bucharest (FDR section) 20:30, Sala 2 Lobby

Book launch (electronic format): EUROPEAN THEATRE TODAY. CD edited by ETC – The European Theatre Conventions. Hosted by Condruța Popov

10:00, Reading Room

NDC Workshops: ÎN AER / UP IN THE AIR by Alexandra Pâzgu Stage director Mihaela Lichiardopol. Coordinated by Nicolae Mandea

21:00, Sala 2

SWITCH, a show by Pál Frenák and Timisoara National Theatre (INTERSECTIONS section, premiere)

Saturday, 14.05 10:00 Moruzan Room

NDC Workshop Readings:

ÎN AER/ UP IN THE AIR, by Alexandra Pâzgu, directed by Mihaela Lichiardopol

ȘTIRI/ NEWS by Viorel Cojanu, directed by Sabin Popescu PASĂREA ORNIC/ THE WALL CLOCK BIRD by Șerban Foarță, directed byIon-Ardeal Ieremia.

13:00, Moruzan Room

Workshop: FROM NŌ THEATRE TO SHAKESPEARE

Coordinated by Yoshihiro Kurita 14:00 and 16:00 TMT minivan

MADY.BABYby Gianina Cărbunariu, directed by B. Fülöp

Erzsébet, Hungarian State Theatre „Csiky Gergely” Timisoara (FDR section) 17:00, Sala TMT/TGST

BORGES VS. GOYA by Rodrigo Garcia, directed by Arnaud

Troalic, Akté Le Hâvre Company (INTERSECTIONS section)

18:30 Mirror Hall

Book launch: DUTCH PLAYWRIGHTS OF TODAY

Anthology, translation and preface by Liliana Alexandrescu.

Hosted by Nicolae Prelipceanu.

19:00, Main Hall TNTm

ROMANIA 21 by Peca Ştefan, Piatra Neamţ Youth Theatre, directed by Pia Furtado (FDR section) ora 21,30, Studio TMT

TWO LETTERS… AND COUNTING!

by/with Tony Nardi, Canada (performance in English; PERFORMANCE section)

Sunday, 15.05 17:00, Sala TMT/TGST

BORGES VS. GOYA de Rodrigo Garcia

by Rodrigo Garcia, directed by Arnaud Troalic, Akté Le Hâvre Company (stage play in French and Spanish with subtitles in Romanian; INTERSECTIONS section) 19:00, Main Hall TNTm

ŠVEJK GALAXY after J. Hašek, directed by Alexander Hausvater, Tăndărică Theatre Bucharest (INTERSECTIONS section) ora 21, Sala 2

FDR Awards Ceremony.

NDC Awards Ceremony.

Festival Closing Night

A STORMY NIGHT by I.L. Caragiale, directed by Alexandru Dabija, Iaşi National Theatre (INTERSECTIONS section)

SCHE DULE

TIMISOARA, THE CAPITAL OF ROMANIAN DRAMA ON THE MAP OF EUROPEAN THEATRE

photo©Adrian Pîclişan

The European Festival of performing Arts Timisoara aims to integrate the New Romanian Drama Festival into the European movement of the modern theatrical phenomenon.

The motifs, the writing manners, the way in which the structure of the stage plays is constructed, the strong focus on a stringent social theme define the European identity of the new Romanian drama. This year’s edition is structured on four stage play modules, to which are added debates, readings, workshops centred on today’s stage plays based upon Romanian drama texts, as well as on the distance or closeness of Romanian and European new theatre. The stage plays included in the schedule of this year’s edition will take place in theatre halls, in the park, in Victory Square or in the parking lot of the department store close to Sala 2; the contemporary theatrical phenomenon is a social one, as well as an integrating one.

FEST FDR is part of Timisoara National Theatre’s strategy of events that are to define and redefine the national theatrical identity, as well as the European identity, through the social and theatrical phenomenon.

I want to thank the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage for the support offered in organizing this theatrical event that is of crucial importance to Romanian society, now in a continuous process of movement and questioning. I also want to thank the entire TNTm team, as well as the collaborators of FEST-FDR, to our partners and sponsors. I hope that this festival will become a real and unifying platform, an engine fuelling civil society.

Ada Hausvater

General Manager, Timisoara National Theatre

FORCED ENTERTAINMENT AND OSMEGO DNIA

Forced Entertainment, the experimental group from UK, has been on the European stage for more than 25 years now and they have conquered a place of their own, thanks to the constant curiosity of its founding members for theatre’s inner structures and ways of functioning. In a very different sociopolitical context, Polish company Osmego Dnia (The Theater of the Eight Day) has also gained its place in the contemporary performance history in over 45 years of existence, thanks to the sustained research of new ways of expressing vital themes, for the spiritual surviving of their people.

While Forced Entertainment was openly confronting a theater system which was inclined to constantly re-confirm a sole way of doing theater and permanently seduced by commercial temptations in a capitalist society, Osmego Dnia was fighting a totalitarian system which jeopardized the freedom of speech, forcing them to leave their country at one point and add in their biography the exile condition.

Besides their different and complementary historical stories, both extremely relevant for the theatrical map of the last decades, Forced Entertainment and Osmego Dnia stand for essential experiences in the evolution of the contemporary performance, through the original aesthetics they propose. Forced Entertainment re-interprets the basic conventional theatrical material, conducting a de-construction of the theatre act from inside and creates in a collective manner a type of postdramatic theatre which includes self-reflections on theatre condition and on the relationship between actors and spectators.

Osmego Dnia fosters its theatre from the solid roots of Polish theatre culture and creates an original formula adding the elements of cultural activism. The result is a theatre of beautiful visual metaphors, with a powerful accent on performers’ physicality and a powerful ideological message.

When trying to recuperate the recent performance experiences, completely different from the Romanian ones, via companies that prove themselves as much alive today as yesterday – as the festival in Timisoara tries, opening its doors to the international artists, becoming the European Festival of Performing Arts, FEST-FDR - one can hardly find better examples than Forced Entertainment and Osmego Dnia.

Many thanks to British Council Romania and Polish Cultural Institute for their help in bringing these unique artists on the Romanian stage.

Cristina Modreanu

Theatre critic, International Programmer

photo©Lucian Spatariu

THE YOUNG VETERANS OF CONTEMPORARY EUROPEAN STAGE

STRINGENT DRAMATURGY The new dramaturgy critically dissects the immediate reality. It questions it, disturbs it, and symbolically fragments it in order to reset its given order.

The new dramaturgy is a research project with a social and political stake. The option for contemporary texts implies a manner of thinking and interacting with slices of problematic reality. The representation of this reality rises from the urgent need to name it. Romanian dramaturgy today confronts us with multiple writing styles, as well as multiple approaches – from documenting personal histories to exploring the history of a community, from the investigation of the recent past to the plural comment upon a present date event.

Staring from 2011, New Romanian Drama Festival has a strong international component. In this new context, the individual voices of new Romanian drama and the diverse manner of handling the text become all the more relevant.

The Romanian reality needs drama texts than can represent it.

Mihaela Michailov

Programmer FDR Section

MEMBERS OF THE JURY

ROMANA MALITI, vice-director,

international relations manager International Theatre Festival Divadelna Nitra (Slovakia)

TONY NARDI, actor, playwright,

director and producer (Canada)

CHRISTIAN PAPKE, director (Austria)

FDR SECTION

Sunday, 8.05, 17:00, Studio 5

LUNI de la Green Hours Theatre Bucharest/ tangaProject present:

I HEREBY DECLARE UNDER MY SOLE RESPONSIBILITY by Alina Şerban running time 55 min., no intermission Cast: Alina The Musician

ALINA ȘERBAN CĂTĂLIN RULEA

Stage design ADRIAN CRISTEA Dramatisation ALICE MONICA MARINESCU Sound performance CĂTĂLIN RULEA Directed by

DAVID SCHWARTZ

In this one-woman-show, Alina Şerban retraces an actual trajectory of discovering an identity, a trajectory that spans from for her childhood to her youth, and at the end of which she was able to state out, loud and clear, her Romani ethnic origins. (...)

The process of building an identity determines the main character of the play to relocate the angle of perspective from the outside within. Alina no longer sees herself through other people’s prejudices about the Romani people, prejudices that are confirmed by her daily life in the gipsy camp, but manages to create her own vision that encompasses love, tenderness, her parents’ care and their absence, Alina reaches the point where she can accept herself the way she is. Not with a fairer skin, but with aunts in large, colourful skirts. Oscillating between the two worlds has accelerated and intensified her coming of age, as, at an age when other girls play with dolls, Alina was having the revelation of her ethnical identity that at first (as well as secondly and thirdly) she had rejected.

The text is based on the actual diary of Alina Şerban (...), fragments and personal photos of which are brought on stage with the help of a retroprojector (...). Leaning over the retroprojector, with a beam of light the shape of an hour glass framing her face, Alina Şerban looks at the same time towards the past, as well as the future. Well anchored in the present.

Programmer’s argument: I HEREBY DECLARE UNDER MY SOLE RESPONSIBILITY is an intimate collage of memories, sensations and fears, having the force of a political journey

Monday, 9.05, 17:00, Sala 2

„Radu Stanca” National Theatre Sibiu presents

SLICES by Lia Bugnar

running time: 1h30, no intermission

Cast: Margareta, Ela, Clea The doctor, Bella, Edith, Nbamira OFELIA POPII Stage Design & Light Design Music & Sound Design Choregraphy

DRAGOȘ BUHAGIAR VLAICU GOLCEA FLORIN FIEROIU

Directed by

LIA BUGNAR

I find it hard to speak about I play I wrote, I always have the feeling that I already said all that is to be said by means of my characters. Slices is actually a chain of stories, destinies intersecting, all gravitating around a man whose death triggers the beginning of the play. Slices, less than pieces that is, and more than crumbles. There is no need to eat the whole sweet bread to tell how it turned out.(…)

Slices of life, slices of love, slices of a crisis, slices of sadness, hilarious slices, slices...

Lia Bugnar (...) There was once (upon another time) a whirlwind of pains and anguish born out of one single occurrence – death. His death. The commonplace, isolated lover counts her illusions. The wife, just like a derailed train, is looking for the switch point in the continuous railing of a complicated love, with an (alcoholic) tinge of stations there is no stopping in. The daughter, freezing and disoriented at the height of an amphetamine fuelled night, calls upon the father of her childhood, a childhood pulverised by a mere gesture. The pedicurist begs for hope concerning her child who just ran out of medicine. The mother, cynical and patronising, spreads the playing cards of fate the same way she did it all her life: with a dissolving black humour. (…) Their destinies contract and contort in the same way they lived, briefly, in his presence: complicated and ephemeral. (…) There is no winner, and the losers seem equal in their separations. One does not turn into a shoulder to lean on for the other, and their adversity is irreconcilable. They are like slices of bread given out to guests around the table: equal in value, but forever separated.

Doina Giurgiu Programmer’s argument: SLICES places under the magnifying glass of rotating dramaturgy several characters gravitating around the same event. It as a fragmented text, with unity lying in the ties between perspectives.

Tuesday, 10.05, 17:00, TMT/TGST

Odeon Theatre Bucharest/ Universal Artists Unforgettable Foundation presents

graffiti.drimz by Alina Nelega running time: 1h30’

Cast The Grandmother, Dori, The Mother of the running girl CĂTĂLINA MUSTAȚĂ Sorin’s father FLORIN ZAMFIRESCU Sorin LIVIU CHIȚU (UNATC student 3rd year) Cipri SILVIU MIRCESCU (UNATC, student 2nd year) Tibs RĂZVAN ALEXE (UNATC, student 3rd year) Alin SORIN ȘAGUNA (UNATC, student 3rd year) Cristina MIRIAM RIZEA (UNATC, student 3rd year) Runninggirl AIDA AVIERIȚEI UNATC, student 3rd year) Children from the block HORIA BUTNARU, ADUARD HARIS, SILVANA NEGRUȚIU, SMARANDA PAȘNICU, HOREA SUCIU (UNATC, students3rd year) Stage design Arh. GABRIELA ALBU Graphic design ALEXANDRA ALBU Original music HORIA BUTNARU & HORIA ALEXE Dance SILVIU MIRCESCU Directed by ALINA NELEGA graffiti.drimz is a block story, made up of overlapping adolescent destinies, on the tragic background of a family falling apart because its members are unable to face the facts. All the thirteen scenes of the play take place the same Friday night in which a teenager tries to win the affections of a girl by drawing graffiti on the school wall. An alcoholic mother, a widow trying to run a restaurant on her own, a failure of a father and a grandmother with Alzheimer’s all take part in the plot that, the same as photographs in an album, reveals itself in frames culminating with an accidental murder. In a rough world, lacking compassion, ten characters talk about friendship, love and dreams, frustration and failure, with inserts of fee-style, hip hop and brake dance especially written for this stage play.

Alina Nelega Programmer’s argument: graffiti.drimz is the story of a generation that painfully experience a gap in communication with their parents and who imagine parallel worlds to take refuge in. It is a play about teenager problems, a motif little explored in Romanian theatre.

Tuesday, 10.05,19:00, Main Hall TNTm

Satu Mare North Theatre/ Babeș-Bolyai University, Faculty of Theatre and Television/ „Vlad Mugur” Research Centre presents

PLAYLIST by C.C.Buricea Mlinarcic running time 1h40’

Cast: Orsolya Pogăceanu LÖRINCZ ÁGNES Laurențiu Pogăceanu RADU BOTAR Melinda Pogăceanu DIANA TURTUREANU Omar Șaripov CIPRIAN VULTUR Theodor Verdinaș DORIN C. ZACHEI Pionieers, Miners, Reporters and TV Hosts MIHAI DĂMĂCUȘ, CAMELIA RUS, DORINA NEMEȘ, ALINA NEGRĂU, TIBOR SZÉKELY Musical training Video Choreography Lights Sound

ADRIANA VAIDA MIHAI DĂMĂCUȘ GABRIELA TĂNASE MIHAI ZIMA SZATVÁRI CSABA

Directed by OVIDIU CAIŢA Dear member of the audience, Don’t lie back yet. You don’t have a chance! You are, of course, at the theatre, but everything you see is, after all, the naked truth about yourself and everything around you. Orsolya and Laurențiu do exist; Melinda did leave for France and did indeed commit suicide. Of course, not all those children who leave commit suicide, but all those parents left behind, as joyful as they sometimes may seem, still feel the emptiness.

You, me and them, all of us, all those who experience the events in December, felt the same hunger, trembled with cold in the same way, we spied on each other in the same way, we were all just as glad when the whole thing burst over into a revolution, we thought it would last and that there’ll be nothing but milk and honey, we lied in the same way, we were driven by the same self suggestion and we hid our cowardice in the same way. Some dies, heroically or accidentally – others, the majority – stood agape, most of us feeling content with having one opinion or another. We raised our children the best way we knew how, and Programmer’s argument: The recent past leaves traces in the conscience of people no longer sure of their options and who don’t have enough time to understand the times they live in.

Tuesday, 10.05, 21:00, Studio TMT „Coliseum” Arts Centre Chisinau presents

M HOUSE by Luminița Țîcu

running time1h20’, no intermission Cast SNEJANA PUICĂ MIHAELA STRÂMBEANU INA SURDU IRINA VACARCIUC Directed by LUMINIȚA ȚÎCU

On stage: four women, a row of jars and … a bicycle. Four women someone should listen to. Even if at first sight they might seem common, it’s enough to listen to them to understand, finally, how much family violence manages to erode the foundations of the family, how it destroys the lives of those who have become it victims. (…) All are real life stories that are told as such, in the most original language used by women living in the country. There is nothing fictional in the words that will be heard on stage, and you are reminded of this fact from the very beginning, still they manage to shock you as to the way these women’s lives have been mutilated by their husbands. The stage play raises a heavy curtain left to fall over a phenomenon that should make each and everyone of us aware of, and, at the same time, leaves a great number of questions unanswered. The first one to come to mind is: “Why won’t she file for divorce? Why does she put up with that?”. The woman will immediately answer: “Because that is so much shame. I don’t want to become the talk of the village…”.

M House is a painful chronicle of family violence, whose most likely victims are children and women. Enjoying the financial support of the OSCE, the stage play follows the rigors of documentary theatre.

Programmer’s argument: M HOUSE is a statement stage play about family violence and the need to react against it. A visceral attitude against a violent behaviour that knocks out existences.

Wednesday, 11.05, 18:00, Main Hall TNTm North Theatre Satu Mare presents

JACK THE SNIPER by Radu Macrinici Running time: 2h15 no intermission

Cast The Woman DANA MOISUC The Man MIHAI DĂMĂCUȘ Raphael DORIN C. ZACHEI The Architect CIPRIAN VULTUR Spirit VLAD MUREȘAN Spirit TIBOR SZÉKELY Spirit SERGIU TĂBĂCARU Larisa DIANA TURTUREANU The doctor STELIAN ROȘIAN Stage Design CRISTIAN GĂTINA Music MIRCEA FLORIAN Live percussion CSEREY CSABA Light design MIHAI ZIMA Sound SZATVÁRI CSABA Directed by GELU BADEA We like fiction, but we don’t want to live in it, choosing to take refuge into reality. And yet, we do it when we least expect it, because God never traced a border between reality and the imaginary. Unfortunately, he let us do that. And we took the bait.

Thus, the seven days of our making and of those of the Genesis are never ending.

Radu Macrinici To summarize it, it’s about the death of a nymph, Larisa, married to the chief architect of a city that keeps expanding, until it threatens to take over the woods, the vital grounds of fantastic beings. Because he considers himself the master of Larisa’s heart, the architect becomes a sniper hunting down the partner of the woman that received the vital organ. Another transplant, from one man to the other, performed by Raphael, the leader of the woods population, will reunite the two lovers, but probably in death, as the text subtly suggests. ...)

Claudiu Groza Programmer’s argument: JACK THE SNIPER is a contemporary story in which the transition between slices of reality and slices of fiction is guided by spirits commenting upon the meanders of our world.

Wednesday, 11.05, Main Hall TMT/TGST Odeon Theatre Bucharest presents

BLIFFED by Gabriel Pintilei

running time 1h30’, no intermission Cast LAURENȚIU LAZĂR ANGELA IOAN MIHAI SMARANDACHE IOANA ANASTASIA ANTON and the child DAVID PETCU Stage design LAURA PARASCHIV Directed by ALEXANDRU MIHAIL

A typical Romanian family. A typical three room apartment. A Saturday as ordinary as it gets… Up to a point. Mother, father and the three children: the elder, the girl and the little one. From this day on, nothing will ever be the same in this family. No one can even suspect the things the little one knows about. A slice of everyday life. A comedy. Just comedy. Bliffed!!

Gabriel Pintilei In Bliffed, an eight year old manages to punish his entire family for their intolerance and for his genetic heritage. The little boy with sparse vocabulary, but way about the average high-tech knowledge, is the malformed reflection of his parents’ souls.

Programme’s argument: Bliffed is a play about growing up and the fear of not being able to face what tomorrow brings, build up in the direct and sincere manner of investigating the here and now.

Programmer’s argument: Bliffed is a play about growing up and the fear of not being able to face what tomorrow brings, build up in the direct and sincere manner of investigating the here and now.

Thursday, 12.05, 17:00, TMT/TGST Very Small Theatre Bucharest presents

AS THYSELF by Maria Manolescu running time 1h30’, no intermission Cast: Ioan Maria Rafa

MIHAI GRUIA SANDU MIHAELA RĂDESCU VIOREL COJANU

Live music BOBO (Fără Zahăr band) aka Bogdan Burlăcianu Stage design ADRIAN CRISTEA Music BOGDAN BURLĂCIANU Graphics DANIEL BĂLĂNESCU Light design ROXANA DOCAN Directed by RADU APOSTOL

Forget all the tragic news you might have seen. Forget the end of the world, the blood, the crimes and the rapes: 300 homeless persons die each winter in Bucharest. They die quietly, in the snow, in absolute loneliness. Did you ever stop to think that maybe extreme violence can also be extremely discrete? Bonus: a very sad love story.

Maria Manolescu An anticouple of homeless people, preaching non-love, non-involvement and death in anonymous loneliness, meet a young man in the freezing cold who intends to commit suicide because he can no longer love the woman of his desire. The meeting temporarily eases the sexual frustration of the young man, and involuntarily brings hope to the couple. But what is hope, and what does it actually mean for two people who think they have nothing left to lose?

Programmer’s argument: The homeless, their dreams, their need of affection and their loneliness lie in the centre of a story with dream-like and poetic-violent accents.

Thursday, 12.05, 19:00, Sala 2

Cluj Hungarian State Theatre/ dramAcum present

ROSIA MONTANA - PHYSICALLY AND POLITICALLY written by Peca Ștefan, Gianina Cărbunariu, Andreea Vălean running time 3h, one intermission Cast: CSILLA ALBERT ANDRÁS BUZÁSI LORÁND FARKAS CSONGOR KÖLLŐ LEVENTE MOLNÁR CRISTINA TOMA Stage design, video, light design FLORIN FIEROIU Choreography ANDU DUMITRESCU Soundtrack BOGDAN BURLĂCIANU Translated by PÉTER DEMÉNY Directed by RADU APOSTOL, GIANINA CĂRBUNARIU, ANDREEA VĂLEAN

Rosia Montana (the mountain village about to be transformed forever by investments in cyanide gold mining) is not only a hot potato for the Romanians, but the situation here brings about further debate as to the world we live in, about the idea of morality in contemporary society, about the polarisation of this society in relation to a particular issue, about the way the mass media chooses to cover (or not) this issue, about poverty, vulnerability and the search for solutions to escape this state of facts, about the wish to save and the wish to be saved, about the relativity of every truth and of every lie, about a present that is fragilely linked to past and future, about the reality/unreality of the situations we find ourselves in at one point, about the way discourse is built in a blurry world where we say one thing one moment, just to claim the opposite the next and, last but not least, about the possibilities, limitations, the attempts of the theatre to relate to a reality that is the more difficult to decipher as it takes place here and now . Under our very eyes.

Programmer’s argument: Rosia Montana - Physically and Politically is a show that investigates a community that is completely turned upside down by the imminent dislocation, clinging to the past and, at the same time, trying to understand its future.

Friday, 13.05, 17:00, Studio 5 TureT Company presents

ICH CLOWN by Sorin Poamă and Vera Ion produced by Link Center running time1h40, no intermission

Cast: Adi SORIN POAMĂ William ANDREI ȘERBAN Dragoș/Alexander ALEXANDRU POTOCEAN Bianca/Gloria ILINCA HARNUȚ Chandi IULIA VERDEȘ Andra VERA ION Decor ANDREI IONIȚĂ, TANIA CUCOREANU Costumes ANTONELA VULPE Multimedia ANDREI IONIȚĂ, ANTONELA VULPE Directed by VERA ION

ICH CLOWN is the first production of the “Write about you” platform. The authors of ICH CLOWN have chosen to write, and then to perform their own story, starting from a situation in which they were confronted with the decision to leave Romania.

Adi is a young Romanian jobless actor, with no money or perspective. He lives in a former real estate agency he rented out in Bucharest. After his girlfriend leaves him for “not having a future”, Adi decides to do something to change his life. With his friends William and Dragoș, they devise a plan to travel through Europe, dressed up as clowns.

ICH CLOWN is the first event of the platform and will function as an example of the method we want to use in our work – starting from real life stories and documenting lives of ordinary Romanian people of the year 2010. After the show, we will contact people in the audience who want to be a part of the “Write about you” project, because we want to offer a normal and relaxed frame in which people can share their experiences. Because our aim is to learn from each other and develop together the ability to articulate and present on stage stories about the world we live in.

Vera Ion and Sorin Poamă Programmer’s argument: ICH CLOWN is a show depicting the myth of the journey in its profound contemporary versions.

Friday, 13.05, 19:00, Studio TMT Act Theatre Bucharest/ Peter Kerek present

9 DEGREES IN PARIS written by Peter Kerek Running time 56min.,no intermission

Cast : ALINA BERZUNȚEANU Decor CRISTI NICULESCU Costumes and makeup TEODORA MARDARE Image FLORIN COSTACHE Montage ALEX BORUDNEL Sound MIHAI BOGOS Directed by PETER KEREK

The stage play sketches out the portrait of a young woman at a crucial point in her life: the decision to leave her family. It is the story of the last 56 minutes she spends in her own home, alone, before she leaves. No remorse, no feeling of guilt. Her only concern is to leave everything in a perfect shape behind her. But, as she tries to prepare her perfect departure, things become more complicated and gradually get out of hand.

In order to encompass this woman’s universe just before she goes, the stage play combines two different means of artistic expression: the cinematic one and the theatrical one.

The cinematic part will express the way in which the woman sees herself from the outside, while the theatre brings out her interior world.

We will watch the two means of expression intermingle, contradict each other, attract each other, ridicule each other, in other words, we are curious to find out, which is more suitable, the film of the theatre? Further on we want to see how much of the theatre can film take and vice versa, how much of the film is the theatre willing to accept?

In any case, we are convinced that only through this marriage or this love affair between the film and the theatre can one express the simultaneous coexistence of the exterior and the interior worlds of the character.

Peter Kerek Selectioner’s argument: 9 GRADE LA PARIS is a show-incision of choice. Choice as a means of survival in complete freedom.

Saturday, 14.05, 14:00 și 16:00, TMT minivan „Csiky Gergely” State Theatre Timișoara presents

mady-baby by Gianina Cărbunariu translated by Csűrös Réka running time 1h20, no intermission stage play in Hungarian, subtitled in Romanian and English

Cast: Mady BORBÉLY B. EMÍLIA Directed by B. FÜLÖP ERZSÉBET

Three young Romanians with different social backgrounds and different aspirations leave their country heading for the Land of Promise – Ireland. Without ever looking each other up, their meeting is, however, inevitable and decisive (...) they carry with them, wherever they go, that deep feeling of alienation that drove them out of Romania. Each of them is a winner, but at the same time, each knows quite well that you cannot emerge a winner from a fight in which to make it is, in fact, to be able to survive the Other. madybaby.edu (mady-baby) is a show about creating one’s own identity as an act of absorbing the other person’s identity, about the vitality that is eventually destructive and self destructive and about humanity that is tamed to its lowest limit. We believe that only by shouldering the reality we live in and by refusing to take comfortable shelter behind aestheticism lacking any social and political stake do we have the ability to create a discourse that is trustworthy and direct for those we have had the calling to represent on stage: the people living in Romania (...) or those who decided that it’s time they no longer lived here.

Gianina Cărbunariu Programmer’s argument: mady-baby is a one woman show in which both Romania, the country left behind, and Ireland, the much dreamed of destination, can fit inside a bus. A story about the fear of going back to where you came from, even though staying means turning into merchandise that only needs to be marketed well enough.

Saturday, 14.05, 19:00, Main Hall TNTm

Teatrul Tineretului Piatra Neamt in partnership with British Council present

ROMANIA 21 by Peca Ștefan

running time 2h., no intermission

Cast : Ion VICTOR GIURESCU Mio ISABELA NEAMȚU Teo HORIA SURU Vic MATEI ROTARU Fifi NORA COVALI Peca, The President, God CEZAR ANTAL Ensamble CĂTĂLINA IEȘANU, ADINA SUCIU, RAREȘ PÎRLOG Stage design MORGAN LARGE, IOAN MURARIU Music CHRISTOPH BAUSCHINGER Sound Effects DAVE MACKIE Choreography ANDREA GAVRILIU Directed by PIA FURTADO

Programmer’s argument: A musical of socio-political transition in a country, Romania, mutilated by the open wounds of its recent past, Romania 21 superimposes the personal history of a family over the public history of the transformation of several generations.

ROMÂNIA 21 Romania 21 is a play about identity, in which many cultural stereotypes exterior to us or from within are brought

into question. It is a question-play: an attempt to dissect the so called recent history of Romania and to find out what my relationship with my own country is. Part of this history was my childhood (the 80s), another part was the ever so long transition in the 90s -2000 – adolescence and coming of age. Thus the idea not to present this in a realistic way – but in a more Brechtian one. And in a musical way, as well, because music has the effect of counterbalancing the sarcasm of the play. This is a musical comedy that has its roots in a well known Romanian tradition, making fun of one’s misery.

Peca Ştefan They often say that right now Romania is a medieval patriarchy – a country run by men that consider themselves medieval landlords! I strongly believe in the truth of this reality. To exemplify, Peca (the one on the stage, as well as the one behind it) will make use of a model family, giving actors Victor Giurescu (Ion) and Isabela Neamţu (Mio) the opportunity to orchestrate (...) a story abounding in songs and amusement, that began before 1989 and to this day hasn’t come round to ending.

Doru Mareș

INTERSECTIONS SECTION

Monday, 9.05, 19:00, Main Hall TNTm Nottara Theatre Bucharest presents

THE METHOD by Jordi Galcerán translated by Luminița Voina-Răuț running time 1h40, not intermission

Cast Fernando ADRIAN VĂNCICĂ Enrique ALEXANDRU JITEA Carlos GABRIEL RĂUȚĂ Mercedes CERASELA IOSIFESCU

photo© Ciprian Duică

Stage design ȘTEFAN CARAGIU Directed by THEODOR CRISTIAN POPESCU

A world renowned Swedish company must hire one person to join its team, in a position of great responsibility. The working condition and the earnings are quite attractive. The story begins in one empty conference room that gradually comes to life as four people enter it. They are candidates for a job interview with the company’s representative. It doesn’t take long before they find out that the interviewing method is a most unusual one. As time flies, the candidates are left alone; nobody comes to tell them how the selection will take place. Furthermore, they realise they are in an isolated room that they cannot leave. The series of tests they go through from the beginning is rather disconcerting. The meeting of the four candidates, in a context of great psychological pressure, becomes the mirror to reflect the characters’ humanity, their empathy, their lack of sensitivity, or their intolerance. In the end, however, contrary to what we might have imagined, nothing was what it seemed to be...

Tuesday, 10.05, 21:00, Sala 2 „Radu Stanca” Theatre Sibiu presents

THE PUBLIC EYE by Aurel Baranga running time 1h45, no intermission

Cast The Presenter, Chitlaru, The Actor MARIUS TURDEANU Otilia, Niculina Gologan, Maricica Tunsu DIANA FUFEZAN Director Cristinoiu NICU MIHOC The Secretary CODRUȚA VASIU Pascalide CĂTĂLIN NEGHINĂ Turculeț LIVIU VLAD Băjenaru DAN GLASU Ioniță MIHAI COMAN Dumitraș VLAD ROBAȘ Manolescu ADRIAN NEACȘU Braharu CIPRIAN SCURTEA Calamariu MIHAI ALEXANDRU The outraged member of the audience ION PARASCHIV The wife of the outraged member of the audience ANCA PITARU Constantin Brana, The public eye EDUARD PĂTRAȘCU Decor, costumes and light design DRAGOȘ BUHAGIAR Music VLAICU GOLCEA Choreography FLORIN FIEROIU Directed by THEODOR CRISTIAN POPESCU Beyond the anthropological and reconstructive stakes that the show takes upon itself on a theoretical level, the show (...) hides a really great surprise: Aurel Baranga’s lines work on stage not only because it’s an ironical-brechtian reading of set language (it is a comedy, after all, the ideological manner of speaking is made fun of from the very beginning), (...) A reason for the director’s choosing this play among all others could have been linked to its tile and to the function the intervention of the “public eye” has in the drama text, the member of teh audience character asking for a theatre that speaks his own language.

And brings on stage memory of his own existence. And uncensored laughter, not only because nothing has fundamentally changed in the last 50 years, but because they discover a naturally needed temporal continuity with himself – because hat era too was made by human beings.

Iulia Popovici, „Observatorul cultural” (The Cultural Observer)

Thursday, 12.05, 21:00, Main Hall TNTm „Pál Frenák” Company, Paris/Budapesta presents

TWINS

Prioduced by Magyar Nemzeti Táncszínház, NKA, Ministery of Culture and Education Running time 45 min., no intermission Cast NELSON REGUERA LÁSZLÓ MAJOR PÉTER HOLODA Décor PÁL FRENÁK Costumes GERGELY SZABÓ Music GILLES GAUVIN Light design JANOS MARTON Choreography PÁL FRENÁK

The infinite duo of the human-sized marionette and the flesh and blood being retreating ever further into his own shell plays the main roles. Two dancers, two masked figures: they are about to encounter unity, togetherness, separation, loneliness and solitude sometimes as twin marionettes, sometimes as twin brothers. Twins speaks of the deeper strata of twin existence in the language of dance. It carries symptoms and signs instead of analysis or solution. The two dancers circle as twin stars in the peeling orbits of space until they live through the paradox of twin existence in their relationship believed to be inseparable: the monozygotic unity is all for nothing, the great journey after birth desynchronises them, where they have to find the unity of their own independent personality. The creator is not looking for final solutions. He is rather interested in the process itself, consisting of facing the irresolvable.

Friday, 13.05, 21:00, Sala 2 Timisoara National Theatre presents

SWITCH

premiere running time 55 min, no intermission Cast LAURA AVARVARI DANIELA BOSTAN ANA MARIA COJOCARU IRENE FLAMANN CATALINA CLAUDIA IEREMIA LASZLO MAJOR MĂLINA MANOVICI MIRELA PUIA JESSICA SIMET ANDREA TOKAI LUMINIȚA TULGARA CĂTĂLIN URSU Written by MÁTYÁS VARGA Set design PÁL FRENÁK Music GILLES GAUVIN Video PHILIPPE MARTINI assistant director/translator IUDIT REINHARDT set design asistant ZSOLT FEHERVARI Directed by/ Choreography PÁL FRENÁK

The accelerated multiplication of the means of communication, the possible immersions in the various virtual realities come to change our perception of reality, to modify the value and significance of sensations and emotions that can thus replace the ones our physical body experiences. In this context, sWitch takes a tragic-comical look at our relationship with time, it is a stage play in which Memory uses the senses and sensations in order to create a bridge between the actors, the dancers and the public. Militating in favour of re-learning and re-undertaking of one’s feeling of corporality, sWitch brigs homage to the woman as the depositary of man’s conscience and capacity to face constraints that hinder, more or less in awareness, personal evolution, the road to perfection.

Saturday, 14.05, ora 17:00, TMT/TGST Sunday, 15.05, ora 17:00, TMT/TGST Akté Le Hâvre Theatre Company presents

BORGES VS. GOYA by Rodrigo Garcia

stage play in French and Spanish with subtitles in Romanian running time 1h05, no intermission Cast JULIEN FLAMENT ARNAUD TROALIC

photo© Roger Legrand

Directed by ARNAUD TROALIC

Is it actually a nightmare, or an imminent personal revolution? How can one oppose to barbarism? How does one escape predetermined role- models? What does one pass on to his children? These are some of the fundamental questions that Rodrigo Garcia knows how to raise unleashed fury, flamboyant comments, poetic turns of the phrase, starting from every day gestures.

In Borges, a man re-lives the age of 17, in the Buenos Aires of the 70s, at the height of the military dictatorship. He experiences once again the process of escape from the social and cultural heritage of his father, a butcher, by following his idol in those days: Borges, a writer he has no courage, however, to approach. Born out of the tides and ebb tides of his memories, the rage blows up to the point of no return, where it bursts out flooding any remaining trace of past admiration: Borges never once used his talent, nor his position, to fight against the unspeakable. That is why today the protagonist must act, must make up for this youthful mistake and kill this substitute father, in a projection centred on the bitter awareness of one’s own inertia.

The hero in Goya is an insomniac 50 year old loser, father of two, with 5000 to spend… and a mad plan: to enter the Prado Museum at night with his two boys, a bottle of wine and a stock of Marijuana, to admire the Black Paintings of Goya.

Akté Theatre Company was created in the year 2000 as a result of the initiative of a group of artists, the majority actors. Gradually, the company crystallized their artistic orientation towards new forms of the theatre and new drama. The long life of its production certifies the importance of the company in the French theatrical diversity of this decade.

Sunday, 15.05, 19:00, Main Hall TNTm „Țăndărică” Animation Theatre Bucharest presents

ŠVEJK GALAXY after Jaroslav Hašek adapted by Alexander Hausvater puppet show, for adults running time 1h20, no intermission Cast GABRIEL APOSTOL IOAN BRANCU VICTOR BUCUR CRISTIAN MITESCU MARIN FAGU ILONNA HRESTIC GEO DINESCU PETRONELA PURIMA ALINA TEIANU and TANIA POPA MATEI CHIOARIU Decor CONSTANTIN CIUBOTARIU Costumes FLORINELA POPESCU Music YVES CHAMBERLAND Choregraphy MĂLINA ANDREI Light design LUCIAN MOGA Directed by ALEXANDER HAUSVATER

In a society lacking form and content from far in the future, autocratic forms that lead to violence and war are created. The only one to fight against such phenomena is the famous soldier Švejk, now launched on the celestial canopy of a future that is characterised by new forms, but old habits. Švejk survives not only because of his storied and his imbecile’s mask, but also because of the innocence that lies at the foundation of humanity.

Hašek’s Švejk comes from afar, from Georg Büchner’s Woyzek. He is the guinea-pig man transformed into soldier-object to suit all medical and military fantasies. (...) Švejk is not an imbecile, as a hurried reading might suggest, but a folk genius, much like the Romanian character of Păcală, who knows how to joggle two meaning words much to the other’s exasperation. The character more or less depicts its creator who formed in Prague The Party of Slow Progress within the Limits of the Law, when it comes to the famous anarchism of the Czech writer. That is maybe the reason why in the stage play produced by Ţăndărică, the Švejk puppet (...) is a man with a head three times the size of its body, while, at the same height, the other characters, the officers, have smaller heads, about a quarter of their size.

Mircea Ghițulescu, „Luceafărul de dimineață” (The Morning Star)

Sunday, 15.05, 21:00, Sala 2 Iași National Theatre presents

A STORMY NIGHT after I.L. Caragiale running time 1h30, no intermission

Cast Master Dumitrache Veta Spiridon Nae Ipingescu Zița Rică Venturiano Chiriac

CĂLIN CHIRILĂ PETRONELA GRIGORESCU DORU AFTANASIU FLORIN MIRCEA HARUNA CONDURACHE COSMIN MAXIM DUMITRU NĂSTRUȘNICU

Stage design

DRAGOȘ BUHAGIAR

Directed by

ALEXANDRU DABIJA

Dabija manages to recreate the intensity, incandescence, viscerality and tone as sharp as a knife of each line. The slum, as it was pictured then and as it is pictured now, has regained its authenticity. It becomes once again alive, boiling over with passion, gossip, confrontations. Beyond the much abused label: “my family man’s honour”, beyond all hypocrisy, betrayal of all kind, smaller or greater lies lie hidden. There’s always someone lying to someone else, someone who is double faced. (…) A storm night is boiling over with action, stake, authenticity and everything visceral, of colourful gestures that most of us have come across on the outskirts of cities, in the slums as they used to be, at the boys in the hood and everywhere where one can find a sordid house, forgotten by time (...). In this comedy we find once again the stakes and the power of detail (...) we encounter the truth and we can notice, if we wish to, how illusions winks at us.

Marina Constantinescu , “România literară” (Literary Romania)

PERFORMANCE SECTION

Saturday, 7.05, ora 19:00, Main Hall TNTm Sunday, 8.05, ora 19:00, Main Hall TNTm Forced Entertainment (UK) presents

THE THRILL OF IT ALL

stage play in English, subtitles running time 1h50, no intermission event having the support of British Council Romania, as part of the New Work New Audiences program

CAST THOMAS CONWAY AMIT HADARI PHIL HAYES JERRY KILLICK RICHARD LOWDON CLAIRE MARSHALL CATHY NADEN TERRY O’CONNOR JOHN ROWLEY Stage Design RICHARD LOWDON Lighting Design NIGEL EDWARDS Music JOHN AVERY Choregraphic training KATE McINTOSH Assistant director HESTER CHILLINGWORTH Producers RAY RENNIE and FRANCIS STEVENSON Directed by TIM ETCHELLS

Co-production partners: Kunstenfestivaldesarts (Brussels), Hebbel am Ufer (Berlin), PACT Zollverein (Essen), Les Spectacles vivants – Centre Pompidou in collaboration with Festival d’Automne (Paris) and Theatre Garonne (Toulouse). With support from Sheffield City Council.

Forced Entertainment is funded by Arts Council England.

It’s bright under the lights, and hot, and frightening. Nine performers in grubby tuxedos and tarnished sequins play out a comical and disconcerting vaudeville to the strains of Japanese lounge music. Deranged dancing girls swirl, giggle, and speak in distorted voices. Shabby compeers compete for the microphone and the audience’s laughter as the show itself slowly starts to unravel. Dances end in fights, jokes end in confusion and sentimental stories end in arguments in this unsettling and extraordinary performance.

Forced Entertainment occupy a unique position in British theatre as trailblazers of experimental and devised theatre. They formed in 1984 and have worked together ever since to explore both contemporary life and the mechanics of theatre, building up a 24-year canon of work which continually pushes the boundaries of performance. Their trademark collaborative process – making work through long months of improvisation and discussion – has forged a remarkable six way artistic marriage between the core members. Their unrivalled body of work framed and focused by Artistic Director Tim Etchells is distinctive and provocative, delighting in disrupting the conventions of theatre and the expectations of audience arts.

Sunday, 8.05, 21:00, Studio TMT

NICK MANCUSO (USA) presents

GOD IS A GANGSTER absolute premiere running time 1h15

On Christmas Eve in a nameless North American city, a homeless man, alcoholic and mentally ill is convinced that he is God. Unable to deal with the suffering of his existence he undergoes a series of transformational delusions attempting to convince an imaginary audience that he and not his son, Jesus, should be worshipped. The story flickers in and out of several lives, which may or may not be real. Is he insane? Is he God? Is he Job of the Bible?

As the Global policies of Wall Street have eviscerated the American middle class many people have ended up destitute and without a home. It is one of the great tragedies of our time. The story was also inspired by the Book of Job in the Bible and I first attempted to write it many years ago under the title Job’s Job. The book of Job is one of the oldest stories on Western civilization and recounts the story of a good man who is tested to the limits of his capabilities by God, to prove to Satan that he is a true man of faith. In the story Job survives the ordeal and is restored. In God is a Gangster, the homeless tramp freezes to death, his heart stopped by alcohol and illness and by a tragic loss which he could no longer endure. But perhaps in his death there is a glimmer of re-birth in a Heaven we know nothing about. In our modern age we have much to learn from the story of Job and much to learn about compassion, and our responsibility to our fellow man.

Nick Mancuso

Saturday, 14.05, 21:00, Studio TMT

TONY NARDI (Canada) presents

TWO LETTERS... AND COUNTING! running time 2h15

The one-man ‘performance plays’ Two Letters… and Counting! are three theatrical open Letters, a protest targeting a much too long tradition of what their author calls “dead theatre”, uttered in one breath by zone of the most reputed actors in Canada.

As a reaction to the ever boring practice of memorized lines, Nardi chose to approach the theatre on his own terms.

I reversed the process: I create the theatrical act through reading the text. I never rehearse. I fly by the skin of my teeth (and improve where and when necessary). A little like a circus performer walking a tightrope (...). The actor (me) does not suddenly appear on stage or leave it at the end. He’s with the audience from the beginning and I always have a Q & A immediately after a presentation.

Tony Nardi

OPEN AIR SECTION

Sunday, 8.05, 15:00 and 16:00, Shopping Center Bega Parking Lot Bycicle Ballet (UK) presents

THE DANCE OF CYCLING running time 25min

Cast SARAH ALEXANDER KATE EVANS STEPH McMANN TERRY O’DONOVAN JOE WILD Produced by KP PROJECTS Producer KAREN POLEY Costumes JANE FOX, CHARLOTTE BERNSTEIN Music OLLIE AYLMER Choreography JANINE FLETCHER

the dance of cycling is an open air performance carried out by five professional dancers. Inspired by personal stories, the dance of cycling celebrates the playful, chaotic and sometimes treacherous world of cycling, with a fast paced contemporary choreography of striking imagery, visual spectacle and comedy. Full of imagination and revigorating, the open air performance is is a joy, captivating kids and adults alike.

Thursday, 12.05, 22:00, Victory Square Osmego Dnia company (Poland) presents

THE TIME OF MOTHERS

running time 1h10 event having the support of Polish Institute Cast EWA WOJCIAK HALINA CHMIELARZ AGATA ELSNER ELA JANICKA KAROLINA PAWELSKA ADAM BOROWSKI TADEUSZ JANISZEWSKI MARCIN KESZYCKI MARCIN GLOWINSKI KUBA KAPRAL ANDRZEJ MAJOS TOMASZ MICHNIEWICZ PRZEMYSLAW MOSIEZNY MILOSZ MICHALAK JACEK NOWACZYK JAKUB STASKOWIAK DOMINIK ZLOTKOWSKI JACEK STASKOWIAK PIOTR NAJRZAL Scenography, lights, multimedia JACEK CHMAJ Music ARNOLD DABROVSKI Video effects TOMASZ JAROSZ Directed by TEATR OSMEGO DNIA

In Poland, the actors that first founded Osmego Dnia (Eighth Day Theatre) are a living legend of dissidence. With an absolutely impressive history, that has not been a stranger to political persecution, to performances held in churches when their theatre was being closed down by Martial Law, to exile in Italy and return home in 1990, Osmego Dnia Theatre are the perfect example of artistic activism in its highest form.

Always present in the public field, with a critical attitude clearly expressed in their productions, the actors of Osmego Dnia have pushed to the ultimate limits the need for free speech, without ever yelding before threat or persecution.

Czas Matek (Time of Mothers) is the story of a mother losing her son in the war. It is, in fact, the story of all mothers all over the world, about all wars that claim lives. (...)The artists of Osmego Dnia make use of the newest staging techniques – sophisticated video projections, including smoke projections, light curtains, strong projector lights that carry the image towards the buildings around, spectacular lights making the actors visible even from the distance, in order to create refined scenic metaphors with which they approach a forever timely motif.

Cristina Modreanu

AN ACTIVE ART PROJECT

Wednesday, 11.05, 17:00, Studio TMT

THE HOUSE OF THE PEOPLE by Bogdan Georgescu

A Generosity Offensive active art project.

Produced by the „I.S. Drăgulescu” Association.

Created with the support of Craiova Penitentiary , of the Contemporary Culture Centre „Club Electroputere” Craiova, of UNATC, Craiova University – The Faculty of Theatre and Veioza Arte.

Running time 45min, no intermission

Cu Mircea Iulia Pandele Inimă (Heart) Dragoș Cristi Raluca Alex

MIRCEA IONAȘCU IULIA LAZĂR DUMITRU PANDELE IRINEL NEAGA DRAGOȘ MĂRU BRAN CRISTIAN PĂTRU RALUCA PĂUN ALEX CALANGIU

Project coordinator from the Craiova Penitentiary RAMONA DINU Directed by BOGDAN GEORGESCU

AN ACTIVE ART PROJECT

The House of the People is a 30 square metres studio apartment in Antwerpen, Belgium. Mircea plays the outlaw in the West. (...) But Mircea lost a lot of man during the last interventions and he is waiting for back up from Romania in order to hit the most important jewellery store in town. The only problem is that those he is waiting for and he counts on completely mess up his plans, so that the The House of The People will be abandoned

The House of the People is an active art project for creative education and social rehabilitation. As part of the pro-

ject, documenting, relationship, acting and script developing workshops were held, as well as a program for spreading the working methods all over the penitentiary by means of the internal television in the Craiova Penitentiary.

The actors volunteering for this project are Iulia Lazăr – actress for the “Marin Sorescu” National Theatre in Craiova, Raluca Păun - actress for the “Marin Sorescu” National Theatre in Craiova, Alex Calangiu – actor of the “Anton Pann” Municipal Theatre in Râmnicu Vâlcea, Bogdan Georgescu – stage director and playwright, at teh initiative of Generosity Offensive.

THE NATIONAL DRAMA CONTEST

For the last four years, Timisoara National Theatre has been the organizer of the National Drama Contest, a competition that targets new or established Romanian playwrights, in Romania or the Diaspora. The main goal of the contest is to select and promote original drama texts, thus helping to shape the outline of national present-day drama.

After debating upon the 64 drama texts entered for this year’s edition of the contest, the Jury made up of theatrologist Oana Borș, playwright Mihaela Michailov, professor Nicolae Mandea (UNATC), theatrologist Dan-Marius Zarafescu and the literary secretary of the Timisoara national Theatre, Codruța Popov have selected the three drama texts that made it to the final.

Pasărea Ornic / The Wall Clock Bird by Șerban Foarță, În aer (Destăinuirile unui tînăr autor dramatic) / Up in the air – Confessions of a young playwright by� Alexandra Pâzgu and Știri / News by These are:

Viorel Cojanu.

The three texts will be subject to analysis and elaborated as part of the The National Drama Contest Workshops, by teams made up of authors, directors and actors, the result of this being a series of three readings, at the end of which the jury will decide the winning text for the Best play of the year award.

WORKSHOP From NĹŒ Theatre to Shakespeare Yoshihiro Kurita is a director, actor and at the same time associate director of the Ryutopia Foundation for the Promotion of Arts and Culture. Specializing in traditional Japanese dance and theatre, Yoshihiro Kurita’s main preoccupation is the ritualisation of performing art. During the last seven years he researched, with this in mind, Shakespearina dramaturgy, bringing a whole new perspective towards cult drama texts of European theatre: Othello, King Lear, The Tempest etc.

ORGANIZING TEAM General Manager of the Timisoara National Theatre

Ada HAUSVATER

FDR Section Programmer

Mihaela MICHAILOV

International Programmer

Cristina MODREANU

Deputy Manager

Ion RIZEA

Executive Assistant

Mihaela PETER

Composer

Tibor CÁRI

Chief Accountant

Elisaveta ZIMBREAN

General Coordinator FEST-FDR

Oana BORȘ

Juridical Department

av. Constantin ŢENŢ

Foreign Relations Coordinator

Geanina JINARU

PR Coordonator

Cristina DOCEA

Literary Secretary

Codruţa POPOV

Technical Coordonator

Ştefan IORDĂNESCU

Transportation Coordonator

Horaţiu NICA

Communication

Carla STIASSNY

Accommodation Coordinator

Ildiko ANTAL

Stage Management Coordinator

Valentina COTINSCHI

Stage Managers

Elena NATALCENCO, Vasile GIURGEAN, Adrian KIPER

Ticketing

Maria MANOLACHE

Graphic designer

Ljubomir POPOV

partners

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www.tntimisoara.com timisoara national theater is a public institution subsidized by the ministry of culture and national heritage