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Gallants of the Old Court Premiere
Coming soon at the National Theatre, #celalaltCaragiale
Fabulous stories from the age of the Gallants of the Old Court transposed into a theatrical script by Dragos Galgotiu
A new title on the playbill of the "I.L. Caragiale" National Theatre from Bucharest, a new staging on the stage of the Pictura Hall: the Gallants of the Old Court, a dramatic script by Dragos Galgotiu after Mateiu I. Caragiale! The first performances of the show will take place on April 7, 8 and 9, 2023, at 19.30.
For his first staging at the National Theatre from Bucharest, director Dragos Galgotiu chose to transpose into a dramatic script the novel by Mateiu I. Caragiale, appreciated as a strange and unique writing, on the borderline between lyrical and narrative prose, unclassifiable in any literary genre, which has been labeled, in turn, as a gothic novel, baroque novel, decadent, aestheticizing, even "the least earthly of our epic works" as the great literary critic Perpessicius declared it. Attracted by the baroque, sophisticated, hidden and mysterious aesthetics of the novel, Galgotiu stages not only an illustration of the text, but a descent into the artificial paradises of dreams, history and memory, and also one into the underworld of Bucharest, with its night-time mores of the early 20th century. The characters belong to depraved bohemia, with customs taken over from the Fanariots, and are paradoxical in their behavior, as extreme vices are combined with the refinement of a world "turned upside down".
The 19th century twilight world of the Gallants is a world on the verge of extinction ("...the most beautiful of ages is fading into blood") and, as in another kind of Cherry Orchard, the show also becomes a requiem for the murdered Bucharest - for it is this city we are talking about...
Dragos Galgotiu takes up the challenge of proposing innovative solutions of scenic aesthetics, in which the action is replaced by narration and its simultaneous reliving, in a cascade of reminiscences ... In the absence of a continuous narrative structure, the performance, made up of chains of sequences, is constituted as an open reading, involving the audience in another model of communication, a different way of narrating.
His directorial approach also has a certain significance, that of staging the other Caragiale, in the theatre that bears the name of his illustrious father, Ion Luca, in whose shadow Mateiu - an author who belongs, in fact, to a very rarefied elite of European culture, that of the "club" of writers who claim to belong to the "dandyst" current - has been placed, perhaps unfairly.
A magnificent cast will soon perform on the stage of the Pictura Hall, featuring the costumes of unparalleled inventiveness of Lia Mantoc: Cara: Marian Ralea, Pirgu: Claudiu Bleont, Pantazi: Ioan Andrei Ionescu, Pasadia: Mihai Calota, Pena Corcodusa: Cesonia Postelnicu, Rasela: Fulvia Folosea, Sultana: Magda Catone, Elvira: Costina Cheyrouze, Mina: Erika Baiesu, Tita: Rodica Ionescu, Maiorica: Dorin Andone, Serghie: Carol Ionescu, Wanda, Ilinca: Maruca Baiasu, Costache: Petre Cheregi.
Directed, staged, set and musical score by Dragos Galgotiu.
#celalaltCaragiale
Translated by Andreea Codrea-Boeriu
