25 October | 16:00 – I.L. Caragiale National Theatre Bucharest, Media Hall
FREE ENTRY, subject to availability
At the Future and Happiness Research Institute, the team of specialists led by Dr. Phekta is searching for humanity’s sense. In reality, this institute collects, stocks, analyzes, organizes the amount of habits, online profiles of people in order to sell them to decision makers.
Part of Performative readings on texts by European and local playwriters
By: Thomas Köck
Translation: Ciprian Marinescu
Cast:
Ioana Cojocărescu, Bogdan Iancu, Mihai Smarandache, Teona Stavarachi, Andreea Tănase
Directed by: Anda Drăgan
Stage design: Clara Ștefana
Producer: National Theatre Festival, 2023
Co-producer: Goethe-Institute Bucharest
Duration: 1h 45 min
The purpose of this is to gain uninterrupted control of society. The data should not be available publicly – except, of course, there is a slip. While “outside”, the choir of broken expectations is protesting against these measurements, the employees of the institute are part of a deadly competition. What Thomas Köck is asking with “Beyond Fukuyama” is which utopies are still alive and surviving after “The End of History”, a theory launched by the American polyglot Francis Fukuyama in 1992, according to which the appearance of Occidental liberal democracy may signal the end of humanity’s socio-cultural evolution and human ruling.
Each performative reading will be followed by a meeting with the audience, with the participation of the creative team and Bogdan Popa (researcher and theoretician)
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Performative readings offer encounters with theatre plays that will be read for the first time in Romania and that address themes and subjects of aching realities.
If last year the performative readings were directed by Bobi Pricop, this year the selected texts would be directed by emerging directors: Anda Drăgan, Tania Drăghici, Mihai Gligan, Luiza Mihailescu, Larisa Popa, Monica Stoica.
As part of this module, a contest dedicated to promoting Romanian plays is being organised. Those who will be selected (text deadline: 10 August) will have the possibility to work for a month with established playwriters – Bogdan Georgescu, Petro Ionescu, Elise Wilk – in order to develop their texts. This way, NTF becomes a platform that allows the upcoming plays to be visible.
The performative-readings modules of NTF is coordinated by the director Bobi Pricop.