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Ediția aniversară a Festivalului Național de Teatru (FNT) prezintă în premieră în România două dintre creațiile teatrale ale anului 2014 care au marcat scenele din întreaga lume prin modurile, pe cât de diverse, pe atât de profunde, în care tratează o temă cheie a lumii în care trăim: războiul și efectele lui asupra ființei umane.
17 July 2015, Uncategorized
“War is a kind of fever. Nobody actually wants it, but suddenly it is there. We didn’t want war, the others say the same / and yet half the world is engaged in it.”
(Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front)
Two theatrical works that have set their mark onto the worldwide theatre stages in 2014 will be having their Romanian premieres during this anniversary edition of the National Theatre Festival (NTF). Both speak, in different but equally profound ways, about one of the fundamental themes of our world: war and its effects on the human being.
THE WAR (directed by Vladimir Pankov), a co-production of the International Cekhov Festival in Moscow and the Edinburgh International Festival, together with SounDrama Studio, and FRONT (directed by Luk Perceval), a production of the Thalia Theatre in Hamburg, are the foreign performances invited to the 25th National Theatre Festival, Bucharest.
Still from the performance „Front“. Photo credit: Armin Smailovic
Marina Constantinescu / Artistic Director of the NTF talks about the theme tackled by the two foreign productions and about the way in which it integrates into the vision that governs the artistic program of this edition of the NTF: „We live in a world dominated by disenchantment, by loss of identity and of what is- let’s say- noble, rare and significant to our lives. We live in a tense world and war is an extremely immediate theme. We are surrounded by forms of war, of conflict, of terror and terrorism. We feel this acute immediacy everywhere around us. And very close to us. The way in which theatre approaches the topic of war- be it in the antique Greek texts, in Shakespeare’s plays or in contemporary writing- is to be followed and analyzed. This is the reason why the NTF includes this year a series of performances that not only do approach this topic, but present it, explore its depth, offers various perspectives upon the topic of war and force us to become aware of the fact that we are an active part of these troubled and equally troubling times.
The performances confront us with past or present wars, wars out- or inside us”.
Still from the performance „The War“. Photo credit: Mihaela Bodlovic
Dedicated to the WW1 Centenary, THE WAR is based on Richard Aldington’s novel Death of a Hero, on Notes of a Cavalry Officer by Nikolai Gumilev and The Iliad by Homer.
Russian director Vladimir Pankov creates a fascinating universe, strong and, at the same time, extremely subtle, with poetical nuances that vibrate at maximum intensity in a performance in which live music, light, movement and text intertwine and explore the psychological and physical impact of war upon us. Pankov’s art gives us a vision of the future.
Based on the characters in Erich Maria Remarque’s novel All Quiet on the Western Front, of Henri Barbusse’s Le Feu and in numerous other literary and historical sources, FRONT is set in Belgium, during WW1.
French, English, Belgian and German men are situated hardly 100 meters away from each other, in opposite trenches. They shoot at each other, dig themselves in and are plagued by rats, lice, damp and hunger. Created in four different languages, the performance presents the point of view of the front line soldiers. A hundred years after ceasefire, Flemish director Luk Perceval transposes his 11 actors and, together with them, the spectators into the apocalyptical universe of World War 1.
Still from the performance „Front“. Photo credit: Armin Smailovic
The 25th edition of the National Theatre Festival (NTF) is being organized by UNITER and will take place in Bucharest, from October 23rd to November 1st 2015.
The two foreign performances will be presented at the National Theatre “I. L. Caragiale”, Bucharest, on October 25th/ The War (Grand Hall) and October 27th / Front (Studio Hall).
For more on the NTF 2015 selection please visit www.fnt.ro.
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Photo credits: Mihaela Bodlovic, Armin Smailovic
PRESS RELEASE
July 17th 2015