26 October | 16:00 – I.L. Caragiale National Theatre Bucharest, Media Hall
FREE ENTRY, subject to availability
One morning, “WHORE” appears to have been written on a high school’s front door, an anonymous insult that makes the story behind it come to surface. Amanda and Fran used to be a couple just a few months ago, a typical teenage love story whose relationship, eventually, ended.
Part of Performative readings on texts by European and local playwriters
By: José Padilla
Translation: Alina Cantacuzino
Cast: Cezara Petredeanu, Vlad Ionuț Popescu, Rodica Lazăr, Florin Aioane
Directed by: Tania Drăghici
Stage design: Clara Ștefana
Organizer: National Theatre Festival, Instituto Cervantes Bucharest and Fundación SGAE (through the TEatroAutor.es programme)
Duration: 1h 45 min
This happenstance wouldn’t have had any relevance if not for the terrible online bullying that Amanda had gone through immediately after the break up, which led her parents to denounce Fran as the person behind it, allegedly. The judge that has been assigned the case proposes an online meeting with sexologist Jordán Gómez. Amanda will take part in this sexology session, alongside Fran and Fran’s mother, and we will all be witnesses to it. One word has the ability to change the course of a story, the way we perceive everything surrounding us, as well as the way everything surrounding us perceives us. Behind an insult, much toxicity can hide, that affects us as a society, but that can be solved through sexual education.
Jose Padilla has a bachelor’s degree in Dramatic Art at RESAD, having been awarded with the Ojo Crítico de la Radio Nacional de España 2013 Award. He had won the First Place in the Almagro Off. Theatre Festival competition with Perra vida, a play he wrote and directed himself (an adaptation based on a novel by Miguel de Cervantes).
Each performative reading will be followed by a meeting with the audience, with the participation of the creative team and Irina Ilisei (researcher, feminist activist)
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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.