Seasons Archive
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
by William Shakespeare
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
by William Shakespeare
Premiere: 23.12.2015
Last performance: 04.06.2017
Duration: 3 h / Pause: Yes
100 de lei; 60 de lei; 50 de lei; 30 de lei (cu reducere pentru elevi, studenți și pensionari)
The show is forbidden for children under 14 years old.
The best known and most enacted comedy of the universal dramaturgy, A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare shall premier in the Grand Hall of the National Theatre „I.L. Caragiale” of Bucharest, directed by Petrică Ionescu, director of Romanian origin established in France. Regarded as one of the great innovators in the field of staging, scenography, opera and ballet, Petrică Ionescu signed, in 2006, still on the Grand Stage of NTB, the direction of the show „The Bourgeois Gentleman” by Molière, a grandiose production, featuring many a famous actor. Contested by critics, disputed, attacked, ” The Bourgeois Gentleman” from NTB has been a great crowd-pleaser.
The fool, the lover and the poet, they are all made of fantasy, utters Shakespeare. Like them, Petrică Ionescu creates, with this new enactment, an extraordinary oneiric and fairy-like universe simmering with eroticism, basic instincts and most of all, vital energies. A fantastic dream in the magical Midsummer Night, woven by an artist’s imagination with an overwhelming originality, A Midsummer Night’s Dream from NTB unites elements of an authentic Shakespearean poetry, humour, mystifying visual structures, ballet and an exceptional musical background.
A dream populated by gods and mortals, by spirits, elves and fairies, interpreted by established actors of the National Theatre, joined by young actors of the Bucharest scene.
„A Midsummer Night’s Dream is Great Will’s most erotic play. Imperatively descending through our experiences and pulsations into the lowest and deepest caves and cellars of our conscience, we are initiated, emerging more evolved. Love is, in the highly pessimistic Shakespearean vision, a mere illusion, like the theatre and life itself. I have discovered the absolute derision and the inescapable cruelty of the love experience. The endless illusions. I have tried to convey these multiple truths with cruelty, keeping the sarcasm and humour present in each tonality of the Shakespearean text”. Petrică Ionescu
Tezeu / Oberon: | Marius Bodochi | Hippolyta: | Raluca Petra | Titania: |
Maia Morgenstern Daniela Nane |
Egeu: |
Costel Constantin Tomi Cristin |
Hermia: |
Ana Covalciuc Raphaela Lei |
Demetrius: | Silviu Mircescu | Lisandru: |
Alex Călin Lari Giorgescu Vlad Bârzanu |
Helena: | Ilinca Hărnuț |
Quince: | Dorin Andone | Bottom: |
Mihai Constantin Gheorghe Ifrim |
Snug: |
Bogdan Costea Costi Apostol |
Flute: | Istvan Teglas |
Starveling: | Daniel Badale | Snout: | Ștefan Ruxanda | Puck: | Claudiu Bleonţ | The Fairies: |
Eliza Păuna Ilona Brezoianu Alexandra Stroe |
Philostrat: | Vitalie Bichir | Efeb: | Rareș Fota | Fairies: |
Alexandra Apetrei Sigrid Bălțătescu Beatrice Rubică Paula Rotar Elisabeta Râmboi Adela Mihai Ada Dumitru Dana Porlogea Oana Marcu Romina Boldașu Bianca Bor |
Elves: |
Vladimir Albu Nicolae Dumitru Denis Hanganu Eugeniu Cozma Andrei Atabay Victor Apetrei Adrian Pop Alexandru Sinca Eftimie Ghighi |
"The Dream..." confirms the taste for the monumental and for the syncretism of a flamboyant baroque (or mannerism).
(...) We also find here the unorthodox approach to the text. We are confronted with an assault of violent sensations (despite the aesthetic stylisation).
A chain of explorations of life like a dream turned into a nightmare. A delirium from the eruption of a turbid unconscious. A waxwork of fabulous imagination, now wonderful, sometimes terrifying through sexuality and morbidness. Obsessive stimuli, whose dramatic tension is - programmatically! – undermined and overthrown by parody and grotesque reminding of Bosch or Ensor".
Natalia Stancu, Jewish Reality, January 2016 - Petrică Ionescu, a Man-Show
"Liberated from artistic prejudice, Petrică Ionescu faces the audience with a mirror of a reality, which is often wearing flashy make-up. Innovative ideas can usually be found at formal level, not altering the primary text. In no other Shakespearean comedy or tragedy is eroticism depicted more brutally".
Mădălina Dumitrache, Webcultura – Cupid and Eros between Decadence and Humour
Translated by Simona Nichiteanu