It’s not important how many performances we present, it’s important how diverse they are- actors, directors, set- designers, how Romanian theatres are making real effort to put together programs, to create directions, to challenge the actor to unexpected hypostases, how cities are extracted from their prejudices, we are taken out of our wooden tongues, of our habit of hastily applying labels. I believe in the solidarity of this profession, I believe in the symbolistic and the new way of facing the challenges of the 21^st century, here and elsewhere. O have never given up the idea of the international participation within the Romanian National Theatre Festival. I have always had the feeling that we have to bring to this only festival dedicated to the Romanian theatre phenomenon held in Bucharest some of the world class international performances. There is an elite, very informed audience of connoisseurs, people who are involved in the intense cultural life of the city and the world. I think Bucharest needs this international program, culture, values, as much as it needs fresh air. Through theatre, we find ourselves in a central position and we have to keep this place. The Festival has a great importance for the way in which our country and the city of Bucharest are perceived in the cultural world.

The motto we chose for this year, ”Theatre Changes the World”, is of great importance, as it mirrors the involvement in the immediate present of the creators.

Artists in Romania are models, not only for what they do on stage, but also through what they say and do within the civil society. They are voices of their cities, this is clear, it’s visible, it’s sensible.

And it is to discover in this selection too.

Theatre forces one to remain awake, alive in relationship to the self! This is how you keep yourself alive as a human being, as a citizen who reacts to the acute problems of the society, who’s opinions count!

As a spectator, I am not evading from reality, I’m not hiding in fiction. I go to the theatre wanting to come back a different person, wanting to bring back to reality another tone, answers, new ways of performing old searches, courage, force, but, most of all, the power of our interior freedom.

How can theatre change the world? Here a first answer: through resistance of the artists against all the aberrant, shocking in our lives. In the judiciary system, in the health system, in culture and education! The power of the word “together” can bring us together rapidly and strengthen us.

This edition of the RNTF is dedicated to VICTOR REBENGIUC. His verticality gives us the energy and endure and fight for change in life and in theatre.

I myself consider this edition as being the most complex, dynamic and wide ranging so far.

Simply because it reflects my subject, the season 2016-2017.

Editorial by Marina Constantinescu