The National Theatre Festival

The event is scheduled to last until this coming Sunday, and this year has come up with a series of Romanian and foreign performances, as well as lectures, book and drama magazine launches, and the screening of theatre-related films.

The festival will be making its presence felt in all theatre halls across Bucharest, the Film and Theatre University, but also in front of Romania’s Art Museum building.

Among guests this year are leading names in the theatre world from Europe and elsewhere around the world: stage directors whose productions were literally groundbreaking in terms of style, theorists teaching at the world’s greatest universities, authors whose academic output includes actors’ biographies or volumes of theatre reviews, some of them translated into Romanian for the first time ever.

A string of events during the festival will bring to the fore various aspects of one of the leading Polish directors: Tadeusz Kantor, whose productions will be partially screened during the festival, will include a photo exhibition and the launch of Michal Kobialka’s book on Kantor’s stage work, entitled: “A Journey Across Other Spaces: Tadeusz Kantor’s Theatre”.

Such leading directors as Krzysztof Warlikowski, Andrei Serban, Silviu Purcarete, Alexandru Tocilescu or Radu Penciulescu will have their pieces on stage during the festival.

The Bucharest National Opera House wile be playing host to two totally new theatre shows, presented as premieres during the festival: “Animals’ Access is Forbidden”, written and directed by Rodrigo Garcia, and “Breaking the Waves or the Blessed Life of Bess”, directed by Radu Alexandru Nica.

The organizers of the festival said tickets for most of the performances had been sold out. The price for one ticket ranges from 10 Lei (2 Euro) to 60 Lei (14 Euro).

(Radio România Internaţional, Serviciul în limba engleză).