Archive 2008

The 18th edition of the National Theater Festival brings exceptional shows onto Bucharest stages. Between 1-10 November, NTF 2008 will gratify its audience with an “explosion” of top shows from Romania and from abroad, all part of a complex image of today’s theater market. Besides highlighting theatrical novelties, NTF 2008 will start the presentation of young stage directors who made their debut in the last year, and will attempt to foster a closer relationship between the spectator and the show by organizing a series of special events.

The 2008 edition of the NTF is comprised of three categories: top Romanian shows (Romanian Showcase), foreign shows invited to the festival (International Voices), and Debut (New Entry). For the Romanian Showcase category shows were selected that may successfully represent Romanian theater abroad. Apart from the Romanian audiences, the NTF invited international promoters and foreign festival and theater directors with the aim of including these shows in the programs of the events under their supervision.

Between 1-10 November, the famous Lithuanian-born Russian stage director, Kama Ginkas, will be present at the National Theater Festival in Bucharest. Two shows directed by Kama Ginkas and produced by the New Generation Theater in Moscow, whose manager he is, were scheduled in the International Voices section: The Black Monk by A.P. Chekhov and A Ridiculous Poem after F.M. Dostoevsky. In addition, Kama Ginkas will deliver a lecture entitled Provoking Theater, hosted by NUTCA, and at Carturesti bookstore a book by Kama Ginkas and John Freedman will be launched: Provoking Theatre: Kama Ginkas Directs, published in the new RNTF collection with the support of UNITEXT publishers (Romanian version by Andrei-Luca Popescu and Marian Popescu).

The National Theater Festival opens on 1 November at 18.00 at I. L. Caragiale National Theater in Bucharest with a sunny show made of music and emotions, not words: The Sound of Silence, directed by Alvis Hermanis.

The show brings to light the romanticism in us and is a “step toward the light” itself, according to its stage director, Alvis Hermanis. The Sound of Silence is based on Simon and Garfunkel’s music, who represent (again, in Hermanis’ words) “the absolute utopia, the romantic feelings of the 60s.”

“Fascinated with the past, Alvis Hermanis created a show without words, made of Simon and Garfunkel music videos, in an attempt to reconstruct portions of young people’s lives at a time that we often miss,” the new NTF selector, Cristina Modreanu, says about the show.

Besides prestigious Bucharest theaters that have been supporting the National Theater Festival for years, other spaces have opened up to host shows from the 2008 selection. In addition to Ion Creanga Theater, a professional theater dedicated to children and young people that joins the National Theater Festival every year, in this edition Ion Dacian National Operetta Theater also became a regained space.

Although during the regular season these two theaters have a distinct, specific repertoire, for the duration of the National Theater Festival they enrich and diversify their cultural offer.