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On the occasion of the National Day of Culture, Wednesday, January 15, 2025, the program of the "I.L. Caragiale" National Theatre in Bucharest will include:

Mind and Heart - Reading-performance with two plays in one act by Mihai Eminescu

Part I - Mind and Heart
Cast: Ionut Toader (Mimi), Alice Salceanu (Bibi), Monica Davidescu (Ana), Cesonia Postelnicu (The Aunt)

Part II – Gogu Tatii
Cast: Alice Salceanu (Anetta), Ionut Toader (Barbu), Ovidiu Cuncea (Pavel), Razvan Popa (Leizer)
Directed by: Razvan Popa
Sala Media, 7 pm
Free access

The passion for the stage and its problems embraced different aspects in the life and preoccupations of the poet Mihai Eminescu. He got "caught" in the mirage of theater in his childhood, when he listened to Alecsandri's plays, and in his adolescence, when "I once played theater in the attic room - he remembers - where I used to sit with the Armenian...", a fellow student at the German High School in Cernauți (1860-1863). His involvement in the work of famous private companies (Tardini-Vladicescu, Pascaly, Iorgu Caragiali) and the Teatrul cel Mare in Bucharest as a souffleur, actor (sporadically) and [literary] secretary cemented his connection with the world of show business, giving him the impetus to put some dramatic projects on paper himself during his student years. The contact with the Junimea Magazine, as well as the spiritual context of the time in which topics related to theatrical life were the order of the day, gave him the opportunity to express himself as an exceptional theoretician and theater chronicler, sometimes also as a translator, for the newspapers Curierul de Yassy, Timpul, and various literary magazines in Transylvania (collaboration during his studies in Vienna, when the idea of a Romanian theater in the region was taking shape).

His plays - historical dramas and comedies of manners - more in verse than in prose, have the outline of dramatized poems. For the most part, they have no final form and are, as the author himself would say, at the stage of "reworking".

Minte si inima (Mind and Heart), a reading-performance with two plays in one act by Mihai Eminescu, directed by Razvan Popa, reconstructs, with much humor, a fragment of Romanian life in the 19th century.

"Was Eminescu also a playwright, exegetes occasionally wonder, or was he only a fickle, as the great novelist Stendhal was, in theatrical matters all his life? Fragmentary, more compact or simple punctuations and schematizations, Eminescu's dramatic works prove... a continuous aspiration and serious means, which could have fostered a powerful creator of characters and dramatic situations.

...his short and troubled biography did not allow the great poet, who was undeniably also a man of the theater, as he was a man of the library, of school and of journalism, to include in the permanent repertory of the theater dramatic works that were at the highest level of his perfect lyrical creations." Perpessicius

"The National Theater in Bucharest has a moral, social and cultural duty to promote Romanian drama whenever it can, and in the context of the anniversary of the national poet Mihai Eminescu's birthday and the National Culture Day, the National Theater has a duty to promote Eminescian drama.

Last year we did a reading performance with Emmi, lost love, lost life, a play in one act, which has never been performed in Bucharest and which incited the audience present at the performance, with the hope of transforming it into a show in the repertoire of the National Theatre, a hope, unfortunately, unrealized.

This year I propose two comedies written, of course, by the eternal Mihai Eminescu, but also unfortunately, unfortunately, not finished by the - otherwise - prolific poet.

It cannot be called a restitution, as both texts have never been performed on stage or presented in any way to the public.

It is not only an exercise in remembrance, but also a wide-ranging reverence full of gratitude to the immortal poet and for his continuing inspiration." Razvan Popa

"Queen Mary at the theater" exhibition

Spectators are invited to 2 guided tours in the National Theatre Museum to discover the exhibition "Queen Maria at the Theatre", organized within the project "Innovative exhibition with restored cultural goods from the NTB Museum collection", funded by the EEA Grants 2014-2021, RO-Culture Program (www.muzeultnb.ro). The exhibition presents stage costumes and objects belonging to great Romanian actors, recently restored and exhibited in the new space dedicated to the museum, inaugurated on March 27, 2023, on the occasion of the World Theater Day. The main attraction is a dress with a train that belonged to Queen Maria of Romania, and the exhibition is complemented by interactive, visual and auditory elements.

Starting times: 12.00 and 14.00

Tickets are available free of charge from the Ticket Office and online at www.tnb.ro

Translated by Andreea Codrea-Boeriu