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The 10th edition of the Tour of Unification through Art - The Romanian Theater Bucharest-Iasi-Chisinau will bring on February 1 and 2, 2025 at the NTB two major performances of the Mihai Eminescu National Theater: The Glass Garden and Chirita in Concert in Chisinau. The performance The Glass Garden, directed by Petru Hadarca, is a dramatization by Mariana Onceanu based on Tatiana Tibuleac's novel of the same title, awarded the European Union Prize for Literature - 2019. Taken from an orphanage, named Lastocika ("swallow" transl.), raised by a Russian woman in a Russian-dominated Chisinau, where the court was legion, the orphan grows up in search of love, understanding, landmarks with which she could identify. Her mother tongue, Romanian, keeps her rooted in her cultural-identity and opens the way to her connection with the free world. "The novel The Glass Garden by Tatiana Tibuleac has shaken me deeply and brought me out of my inner comfort. It made me see the world from a different perspective, from several different angles: I felt the bitterness in the mouth of an orphaned child, a woman's fears about her femininity, the emptiness in the soul of a man desperately searching for a sense of identity. This confession, which sometimes bursts with rage and cruelty, sometimes turns into a lyrical meditation, sometimes meticulously cuts the thread in four or bites ironically, makes you wonder by what miracle an abandoned and unloved child, raped in his teenage years, becomes a good person who loves and gives love?", says the director of the performance, Petru Hadarca. The second performance to be presented by the TNME on February 2, 2025 is Chirita in concert in Chisinau, a musical staged by Ada Milea, on a script inspired by the plays of Vasile Alecsandri and Matei Millo. TNME's Chirita is seductive, charismatic and, of course, spirited and fiery, ready to eat fire for the sake of her priceless offspring: the funky Gulita - "bearded child", Aristita and Calipsita - "my little girls, plucked from the stars", the flamboyant and charming Luluta, trapped in a golden cage, and the whole retinue of the famous play: The Charlatans - surprising in their tricks, Conu Barzoi - a candidate for mayor, the exciting Leonas, in a parade of unexpected disguises, and a surprise character - Vasile Alecsandri, who, imperturbable, watches from the pedestal, the accelerated unfolding of the actions. TNME has chosen Vasile Alecsandri's plays because he is one of the few classic authors who, along with Mihai Eminescu and Ion Creanga, was allowed by censors in libraries and school textbooks during the Soviet period. And Chirița is the comic and jovial character, but also subversive at the same time, because it was she who provided the connection between the two sides of the Prut, when Soviet ideology was instrumentalizing the narrative of two literatures and two languages. The Romanian Theater Bucharest-Iasi-Chisinau Unification Tour is a long-standing project initiated by the late Ion Caramitru, who aimed to unite the two banks of the Prut through theater. The event takes place annually in January, around the celebration of the Unification of the Principalities Day, and includes performances in Bucharest and Iasi, followed by a return tour to Chisinau, organized around March 27, the anniversary of the Unification of Bassarabia with Romania. The project is supported by the Romanian Cultural Institute and its representation in Chisinau, the Romanian Cultural Institute "Mihai Eminescu". Both performances will take place in the "Ion Caramitru" Hall of the NTB, starting at 7 pm. Tickets for the two unique performances are on sale on tnb.ro and at the Ticket Office of the "I.L. Caragiale" National Theatre in Bucharest. Photography Florin Ghioca   Translated by Andreea Codrea-Boeriu 

Exclusive taxi service for NTB spectators The "I.L. Caragiale" National Theater in Bucharest and Meridian Taxi are delighted to welcome the spectators with an initiative aimed to bring a touch of comfort and safety to winter evenings. From January 22, 2025, right after the end of the performance of "The Hanged Man's Forest" (around 10.40 pm), a specially arranged station in the theater's parking lot will offer culture lovers an easy way to continue their evening in peace, without worrying about the cold or the dark. This partnership is dedicated to all those who believe that the magic of performance should not stop when the curtain comes down. Therefore, in order to meet the needs of spectators who attend NTB performances and who often face mobility problems due to traffic jams, both at peak hours (coinciding with the starting times of NTB performances) and at late hours when some performances end, the taxi company Meridian TAXI has recently signed a partnership protocol with the NTB under which it offers an exclusive service with premium advantages of access to taxi on-demand services to NTB spectators, both when they leave the NTB and when they arrive for performances or other events at the NTB: fast order pick-up, immediate access to the pick-up location (located within the perimeter of the NTB parking lot), payment of the ride with POS, synchronization of the flow of available cars with the number of spectators, payment by card in the mobile app, ordering via Whatsapp and Instagram, etc. Thus, based on a QR code displayed in the NTB foyers, spectators will be able to initiate by phone the order of a taxi from the Meridian fleet, immediately receiving the necessary details for the trip, and will be directed to the customer arrival/ pick-up points located visibly in the NTB's outdoor parking lot. Meridian will automatically take NTB customers' orders, directing taxis with priority to this area specially set up by NTB in its own parking lot, hereinafter referred to as the "customer pick-up/arrival point" Upon arrival of the taxis, customers will be validated by the drivers on the basis of the messages received by phone and transported to the desired destinations. Spectators who will use the services of the Meridian taxi fleet to come to the performances and events taking place at the NTB will also benefit from various advantages: payment of the fare by mobile POS, compliance with the mandatory premium equipment conditions of the taxis that will serve this destination. Meridian will offer discounts or bonuses to NTB spectators: for every 4 rides to the National Theater, Meridian will offer a 40 lei voucher (Conditions of use: rides must be ordered from the Meridian application; a user can receive a maximum of 2 vouchers in a calendar month). Taxi to the theater! - here is a slogan about to become reality...   Translated by Andreea Codrea-Boeriu