The 2023 Edition of the National Theatre Festival (NTF), happening in Bucharest in between the 20th and the 30th of October, is providing three significant international productions, aside from the selected collection of Romanian products.
13 October 2023 NTF PRESS RELEASES, News
Starting 19:00 at the Ion Caramitru Hall of the National Theatre, Catarina and the Beauty of Killing Fascists (opening image: Joseph Banderet) will be performed during the very opening of the 33rd edition of the Festival. The text and the stage direction is signed by Tiago Rodrigues, an appreciated Portuguese playwright, producer, director, actor, as well as the Director of Festival d’Avignon (France). The production is going to play a second time, on the 21st of October, on the same stage, starting 18:00.
Catarina and the Beauty of Killing Fascists (producer – Teatro Nacional Dona Maria II in Lisbon, Portugal; executive producer the – Festival d’Avignon, France, alongside many great theatres in Europe that have joined as co-producers) will be performed in Portuguese, with Romanian and English translations. This show is not recommended for minors under 16. Due to the fact that this production “contains strong sounds”, it is also not recommended for people with hearing sensitivity.
“Put together by one of the most acutely sensitive playwrights and stage directors, the production «Catarina and the Beauty of Killing Fascists» tells the story of a family. A story that summarizes a disturbing history, a story about confronting a particularly painful past. Catarina – the one supposed to carry on tradition – instead stops its continuity. Catarina has the courage to fight back. This show is an invitation towards a tender and poetical reflection on the world we live in, more and more caged by violence. Catarina’s destiny is freeing,” says Mihaela Michailov, one of the three curators of NTF 33.
Tiago Rodrigues confesses that, regarding the production, he intends to activate something that he feels would be “one of the vital strengths” of theatre: namely, proposing characters that, through their thoughts, though what they say and do on the stage, through the ways they do it, “allow us to think differently regarding our own lives, too”.
The first day of NTF also presents Oh My Sweet Land, concepted and interpreted by Corinne Jaber (lower image), starting 22:00, at ODEON Theatre, Studio Hall. It is a Young Vic Theatre (England) and Théâtre de Vidy (Switzerland) production, performed in English and translated in Romania for the festival audience. On the 21st of October, on the same stage, starting 19:30, a second performance of Oh My Sweet Land will take place. Corinne Jaber, of Syrian-German origins, is an actress, scriptwriter and director, born in Munich. She grew up in Germany, but also lived in Canada. She has starred in multiple international theatre productions, in English as well as in French, amongst which “Mahabharata” by Peter Brook, “A Dybbuk for 2” by and with Bruce Myers, “Beast on the Moon” by Irina Brook (performance for which she was awarded with the “Molière” Award for the best actress in France).
Photo credits: Mario del Curto
On this production, Corinne Jaber said: “When I started creating, I only knew that the story will be about a woman, like me, a woman in between worlds, in between heritages, who tries to fit in. I also knew that the show is going to take place in a kitchen. The food, especially the Syrian food that I grew up with, is the inheritance my father left me, my father who had to flee from Syria. Cooking, with its repetitive gestures and familiar, comforting smells, always manages to bring us back to life, even when we live in a warzone.”
The curator Mihaela Michailov says that Oh My Sweet Land is a one woman show “where the frightening reality of war dines – literally and figuratively – with touching personal stories. Stories about Syria, about what it means to live in two worlds, about recipes and bombings. Daily life so close to disasters earns a poetical intensity, emotionally seizing us and reflexively connecting us to a reality that cannot make us feel indifferent”.
The third show invited from abroad is a British production (The Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh): Truth’s a Dog Must to Kennel, scheduled at the National Theatre, Atelier Hall, on the 26th of October, starting 21:30, and on the 27th of October, starting 17:00. It will be performed in English, with Romanian translation.
The text of the show and the interpretation belong to Tim Crouch – playwright, performer and experimental theatre director from the Great Britain, who, according to Mihaela Michailov, has presented this performance at this year’s Avignon. “Tim Crouch proposes a revisiting of classic “King Lear” through a deeply contemporary perspective. When the fool leaves the king, the world changes at a stunning speed. The past melts into a future where a VR headset gives reality a brand-new content,” the NTF curator explains.
Photo credits: Stuart Armitt
Tim Crouch believes that the real space where theatre should take place is the audience’s mind: “The scenic action is only an attempt to trigger something in there and, if we succed, the audience becomes the most important; they become theatre’s dominating collaborator. What I want is for them, the people in the audience, to generate these images themselves, to see them without me having to show them! Many times with this performance, I ask the audience to see with their ears. In my opinion, that is the strongest relationship possible. The audience listens carefully, so that they can see within themselves. My job is to be as precise as possible, in order to allow theatre to be happening inside the audience as freely as it can.”
After the first show of each of the three productions invited from abroad, there will be meetings between the actors and the audiences in the theatre foyer.
It’s important to know that there are other events with the participation of foreign creators within NTF 33. There is a masterclass, titled Devising Theatre & Storytelling, coordinated by Corinne Jaber on the 21st of October, starting 11:00, at UNITER (Savart Restaurant). It centers the creation process for the NTF 33 show, Oh My Sweet Land, and follows the research done for it, working with refugees and the spoken history.
Similarly, a Photography Workshop coordinated by theatre photographer Christine de Grancy is scheduled for the 23rd of October, starting 11:00, at UNITER (Savart Restaurant). This workshop-meeting (produced by the Austrian Cultural Forum) is dedicated to professional photographers, specialized in theatre photography, as well as to students currently undergoing Photography courses. Free entry, subject to availability.
Those who love and admire photographic art will be able to enjoy a theatre photography exhibition within NTF 33, titled Viennese gods for borrowing, stoned witnesses, by the same Christine de Grancy (the opening takes place on the 22nd of October, starting 16:00, at ARCUB, Lipscani Hall). The exhibition will be available until the 5th of November. Free entry.
The photographs that brought Christine de Grancy recognition have been taken in many countries of the world. The artist debuted in Graz, as ceramist and graphic artist. Since 1963, she lives and works in Vienna.