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On Sunday, 8 January 2017, 7.30 p.m., the I.L. Caragiale National Theatre announces the official premiere of the show Old Clown Wanted by Matei Vişniec, directed and conceived for the stage by Ion Caramitru. The premiere shall take place in the presence of the author, on the same day Matei Vişniec being also invited at the National Theatre Conferences. On this occasion, as of 11.00, in the welcoming atmosphere of the Small Hall, the well-known Romanian writer, who has been for many years a familiar voice in the French cultural area, shall talk to us about the Festival d’Avignon, the world capital of the theatre.   „Old Clown Wanted is a play which has followed me like a lucky star since the moment I crossed Europe from East to West, when I passed from one cultural area to another, from one language to another, searching for a new identity. I wrote this play around 1986, when I was already tired of the literature with a „key”, even of the „resistance through culture”. He wrote it with Fellini’s clowns in mind, aiming at going from the world of metaphors and innuendos – so used at that time – to a realistic story, inspired by a world equally sad, where the star, no matter how lucky, fades much too soon, leaving memories behind, as a main resource for survival. Elected in 1991 the best play of the year, at the UNITER contest, Old Clown Wanted became one of the most performed contemporary plays, not only on our stages. „This play was a lucky charm for me – recounts the author. After I translated it into French, it immediately found an echo in France and many other countries, it was one of my great hits in Avignon, but also in Germany, Italy, United States, Brazil, Russia, Turkey, Poland…”. The current enactment from the National Theatre of Bucharest brings into the spotlight a new vision on the text, in a variable geometry – the one of the Studio Hall, especially appealing from this point of view, where you can admire at leisure the talent of the three young performers, Petre Ancuţa, Emilian Mârnea and Florin Călbăjos – cast in a highly appreciated hypostasis in the world of circus, that of a musical clown. Three of the youngest actors of the NTB troupe interpret the roles of the three old clowns. An extraordinary challenge for an early career! Graduates, in 2011, of the Theatre Faculty of Cluj, from the class of renowned professor Miklos Bacs, the three actors-musicians have already performed with great success on the NTB stages in the shows ActOrchestra (directed by Horia Suru), Magic National, as well as in the theatrical duo Caramitru – Mălăele…, both directed by Ion Caramitru. With Old Clown Wanted, the theatre and circus can be regarded for the first time jointly in the rediscovered „arena” of the Studio Hall, in a tragicomic story, with grey-haired young men and old ones exiting the stage younger than they entered it, with dwarves and giants and circus dogs, juggling, acting-magic-craft, revelations after revelations, but especially with sonorities capable of taming the frost of some harsh winter evenings. „I enjoy being challenged and I have challenged myself to lead this artistic adventure, joined by these very gifted young actors”, confesses Ion Caramitru, inviting you to be their accomplices in a tremendous experience, a game of life and death in which nothing is what it seems to be, animated by fantastic creatures, colossal memories and high-risk acrobatics of the soul. Preview shows: 28, 29 December 2016 and 7 January 2017, 7.30 p.m., at the Studio Hall.                                      Translated by Simona Nichiteanu 

This week, the I.L. Caragiale National Theatre of Bucharest has hosted the 5 High Schools - 5 Theatres. The project was initiated by the ECDL Foundation Romania, celebrating its 6th edition. Five theatre troupes from five high schools of the capital have taken the NTB stage in order to perform the plays prepared throughout the project in the time frame October – December 2016. At the end of the Gala, we also found out the winners of the trophies 5 High Schools – 5 Theatres. 5 High Schools - 5 Theatres is an educational project dedicated to teenagers, organised by the ECDL Foundation of Romania, in partnership with the Mayor’s Office of the Bucharest Municipality, the School Inspectorate of the Bucharest Municipality and UNITER, with the aid of five theatres of the capital. The project supports the involvement of teenagers in cultural activities, through their access to institutions and plays, at the same time challenging them to a show contest. Starting with October this year, five Bucharest theatres have opened their season to further 150 teenagers, who could have free access to the shows: the Small Theatre, the I.L. Caragiale National Theatre of Bucharest, the Jewish State Theatre, the Metropolis Theatre and the Ion Creangă Theatre. The new schools participating in this edition of 5 High Schools - 5 Theatres were: the Iulia Haşdeu National College, the Nichita Stănescu Theoretical High School, the Jean Monnet Theoretical High School, the Ion Creangă National College and the Virgil Madgearu School of Economics. This time as well, the teenager troupes have been coordinated by the theatres in staging a short play on the topic of Human Rights. Their endeavour was completed on Tuesday, 20 December 2016, with the representations, jury decision and award ceremony of the five theatre plays created by the teenagers, within the Gala 5 High Schools – 5 Theatres. The youngsters had the opportunity to climb on the stage of a major Romanian theatre and perform in front of a jury of professionals, including Diana Dumbravă – NTB actress, Roxana Guttman – actress of the Jewish State Theatre, Aura Corbeanu – UNITER Vice-President, Lucian Ghimişi - manager of the Ion Creangă Theatre, Cristian Moţiu - actor at the Metropolis Theatre or Viorel Cojanu - actor at the Small Theatre. The jury members have deliberated, pursuing the evaluation of the following artistic performances: Best Show prize was awarded to the play Do not give up! by Victoria Dicu – troupe of the Ion Creangă National College. The prizes for interpretation have been awarded as follows: best actress in a leading role – Maria Barbu from the Ion Creangă National College, best supporting actress – Iunona Ioniță from the Iulia Hașdeu National College, best supporting actors ex aequo – Ștefan Voicu from the Virgil Madgearu School of Economics and Rareș Ștefan Ularu from the Jean Monnet Theoretical High School. The diploma Best Audience was awarded to the spectators invited by the Ion Creangă National College and Jean Monnet Theoretical High Scholl. For its part, the audience assigned the public’s choice award for Best Show to the play The Survivors, after Nicoleta Ionescu – troupe of the Jean Monnet Theoretical High School. The Special Jury Prize was awarded to Prof. Lucia Dobre, who wrote and enacted the play School Otherwise, alongside her students from the Nichita Stănescu Theoretical High School.   Since the first edition which started in 2011 at the initiative of the ECDL Foundation of Romania, 900 pupils from 25 different Bucharest high schools have taken part in 5 High Schools – 5 Theatres. The alternative education plays a vital role in the development of young people, who must further be directed towards real and correct values, including cultural values. The ECDL initiatives promote the balanced development of youngsters, pursuing international careers and certifications, but also understanding the act of culture, as a completion of their knowledge and competences gathered in school. For further information on the project 5 High Schools - 5 Theatres, please access www.ecdl.ro .   Translated by Simona Nichiteanu 

                                                                                                  A masterpiece of universal literature, a true challenge for performers and show creators, a play of perennial topicality, filled with lessons for our contemporaries, but also for Shakespeare’s contemporaries, King Lear returns to the stage of the National Theatre of Bucharest after 46 years since the memorable enactment of Radu Penciulescu, with George Constantin in the lead role. In the new version for the stage, Mihai Constantin, the son of the great actor, himself a name with resonance of the Romanian stage, shall impersonate the legendary king under the inspired „wand” of one of the most appreciated contemporary directors, David Doiashvili, a first-class name not only in native Georgia, but also in the European theatrical landscape. Artist with a complex creative personality, theatre director and mentor of the young generation of actors, theatre and opera director, but also scenographer for his enactments, David Doiashvili, born in 1971 in Tbilisi, has built from his very debut a strong reputation, with noteworthy achievements based on great dramaturgy, which his talent has enveloped in modern, stimulating visions, with an extremely personal dimension. His theatrical career has been honoured with major distinctions. His major achievements with Shakespearean plays include: King Lear, Macbeth (Great Duruji Prize, 2010, in Georgia and 9 awards out of 12 nominations at the Rijeka International Theatre Festival, in Croatia, as well as in 2012, the Best Show Award at the Ibero-American Theatre Festival of Bogota) and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Budapest National Theatre and the Croatian National Theatre, and the one produced on the stage of the theatre he has been managing since 2004 in Tbilisi, the Vaso Abashidze Music and Drama State Theatre, is the production long acclaimed by our audience on the NTB stage as well, in the opening of the NETA International Theatre Festival 2015. This show as well has been honoured with the Duruji National Prize, in 2013, for Best Show, Best Direction, as well as two awards for acting. Among the national successes, we can mention furthermore The Lower Depths – Grand Prize, in 2013, of the Georgian Critics Association, and abroad: West Yorkshire Playhouse (London): Arthur Miller – The Crucible; Mariinsky Theatre (Sankt Petersburg): Gaetano Donizetti - Lucia Di Lammermoor; Croatian National Theatre (Rijeka): Riunosuke Akutagava – A Fool’s Life; Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand, at the Budapest National Theatre. The new version of the National Theatre of Bucharest for the play King Lear is performed by a remarkable cast, among which, alongside Mihai Constantin, you shall encounter: Marius Manole (the Fool), Ioan Andrei Ionescu (Gloucester), Gavril Pătru (Kent), Monica Davidescu (Goneril), Crina Semciuc (Cordelia), Raluca Aprodu (Regan), Istvan Teglas (Edgar), Tudor Aaron Istodor (Edmund), Lari Giorgescu (Oswald), Silviu Mircescu (Duke of Cornwall), Rareș Andrici (Duke of Albany), Pavel Ulici (Duke of Burgundy), Idris Clate (King of France). Direction and scenography: David Doiashvili. Costumes: Liliana Cenean. Original score: Nikoloz Rachveli Memanishvili. An enactment announcing itself spectacular and full of surprises, of a special visual inventiveness, on the director’s specific note. The premiere of the show King Lear is scheduled for Sunday 11th December 2016, 7.00 p.m., on the Grand Hall stage. The next representations: 17, 18 and 29 December 2016.                                    Translated by Simona Nichiteanu 

Did you know that King Lear is considered the most beautiful, most elaborate and most complex among Shakespeare’s plays due to the two parallel and similar stories, that of Lear and his daughters and the Earl of Gloucester and his sons? Besides, King Lear is the only play in which Shakespeare uses this procedure.   The premiere of the show King Lear directed by David Doiashvili shall take place in the Grand Hall of the National Theatre of Bucharest on 11 December 2016 from 7.00 p.m. ! The next representations shall be held on 17, 18 and 29 December 2016!  

Did you know that British actor Paul Scofield was voted, in 2004, by the members of the Royal Shakespeare Company from different generations the best actor of all times to impersonate Lear? Scofield has played the lead role from King Lear in the Stratford mise-en-scène, from 1962, of reputed director Peter Brook, with the troupe of the Royal Shakespeare Company. In 1971, Brook produced a film after King Lear, very different from its staging. The film keeps in its cast some of the actors from the show, led by Paul Scofield, again in the starring role. The premiere of the show King Lear directed by David Doiashvili shall be hosted by the Grand Hall of the National Theatre of Bucharest on 11th December 2016 from 7.00 p.m. !

Did you know that Japanese director Akira Kurosawa has made King Lear into a film in 1984, producing a famous movie entitled Ran? ( „Ran” means „chaos”, but also „civil war”). The movie plot is set in feudal Japan, and Lear’s three daughters became sons in Kurosawa’s film. The premiere of the show King Lear directed by David Doiashvili shall be hosted by the Grand Hall of the National Theatre of Bucharest on 10th and 11th December 2016 from 7.00 p.m. !

A line-up of premieres with renowned plays, staged by first-class directors and scenographers, with a prestigious troupe, which became younger lately, joined by a multitude of cultural and ”paratheatrical” manifestations, turn this end of the year at the National Theatre of Bucharest into an effervescent period, characterised by artistic prowess and performance. The stages of the theatre are seized with the fever of the last rehearsals, the foyers being animated by associated events, and in this rich landscape filled with surprises, any public and age category can find the desired show. King Lear by William Shakespeare, theatrical event much anticipated not only by experts, but also by the general public, in the new version for the stage by Georgian director David Doiashvili, with Mihai Constantin in the lead role, shall premiere on 11 December 2016, at 7.00 p.m., in the Grand Hall. The next premiere, Old Clown Wanted by Matei Vişniec, directed by Ion Caramitru, invites the audience to discover, in an enactment blending theatre and circus in the common realm of the spectacular, not only the surprising technical possibilities of the Studio Hall, but also the graceful performance of 3 of the youngest actors of the troupe, whom you could applaud in Actorchestra and Magic National, Petre Ancuța, Florin Călbăjos, Emilian Mârnea. Approaching the premiere is also the play The Lourcine Street Affair by Eugène Labiche, a comedy of manners abounding in gags and upheavals, an enactment moderated with dramatic nerve by director Felix Alexa, which you can witness at the beginning of next year. In the Small Hall, from 8 December 2016 to 23 February 2017, the audience shall have the opportunity to encounter the unmistakable spirit of a famous American artist with Slovak origins. Emblem of a new artistic genre –pop art, Andy Warhol shall be easier to know and grasp through his works and personal belongings. The exhibits originate from the Andy Warhol Museum of Modern Art from Medzilaborce, Slovakia. The last encounter of 2016, within the framework of the programme National Theatre Conferences, shall take place on 18 December 2016, with General Dan Voinea as guest, the magistrate who handles two of the major post-December files: the file of the Revolution from December 1989 and of the Miners’ Strike from 13-15 June 1990. The topic of the conference: The Legal Truth about December 1989. In the Media Hall, at the Abracadabra National Theatre for Children, hosting a premiere every Sunday morning, the magic of holidays brings the Christmas stories closer to the understanding of the small ones, themselves becoming a part of the story and performers on stage alongside the Magician of Stories, actor Marian Râlea, joined by his assistants. Do not miss this end of the year at NTB! You are expected to discover a wide range of events and enjoy the playful spirit invading the stages in this time of the year!   Translated by Simona Nichiteanu 

In the opening of the Polish Contemporary Theatre Festival, held between 1st and 6th December 2016 on the stage of the Wroclaw Contemporary Theatre, No Matter How Hard We Tried, the play of the stimulating Polish authoress Dorota Masłowska, directed by Radu Afrim and performed by the actors of the „I.L. Caragiale” National Theatre of Bucharest, shall be undoubtedly watched and applauded, as one of the first 3 major focus titles of the manifestation, according to the recommendations of the organisers. At the same time, this Romanian enactment is the only foreign production invited to the festival, whose mission is to mirror the most significant hypostases of contemporary Polish drama, with productions on its stages, as well as abroad. The manifestation situates itself towards the end of the series of events on the occasion of Wroclaw’s selection (Poland), alongside San Sebastian (Spain) – as European Capitals of Culture in 2016. Marius Manole’s creation, cast in a double role in this show: Apathetic Old Lady and the Actor, has been rewarded with the Award for Best Supporting Actor at the UNITER Awards Gala this year. No Matter How Hard We Tried - a text where you can find, to top it all, a lot of Romania, not only Poland – about a society in full metamorphosis, with an insatiable appetite for apocalypse and autistic stereotypes. A show bearing the Afrim trade mark, with humour, cynicism and cruel truth... by the kilogram, in which the absurd acquires pink charm and the playful „smells” grim! Above all, No Matter How Hard We Tried remains a deeply humane show. The show of the National Theatre of Bucharest, No Matter How Hard We Tried shall be performed on the grand stage of the Wroclaw Contemporary Theatre (Wrocławski Teatr Współczesny) on Thursday, 1st December 2016, as of 7.15 p.m. and on Friday, 2nd December, as of 5.00 p.m. The show returns to the NTB stage on 13th December 2016, as of 8.00 p.m., in the Painting Hall, for a new encounter with our public, the last of this year.   Translated by Simona Nichiteanu 

Did you know that King George III of the United Kingdom suffered from paroxysms of madness, so that, during his reign, between 1810 and 1820, all shows with King Lear have been forbidden, due to the main character’s madness? Allan Bennett has written a play about the mental decline of this king, The Madness of George III, enacted in Romania at the „Bulandra” Theatre, with Mircea Albulescu and Rodica Tapalagă.   The premiere of the show King Lear, directed by David Doiashvili shall be hosted by the Grand Hall of the National Theatre of Bucharest on 11 December 2016, as of 7.00 p.m. !   Details       Translated by Simona Nichiteanu  

Did you know that Laurence Olivier performed King Lear once at the age of 39 and again at the age of 76? The first time, in 1946, Olivier acted in a very successful show produced by himself, at the Old Vic Theatre of London, with a young Alec Guinness in the Fool’s role. In 1983, Olivier, restored after a serious illness, has performed Lear in a TV production, directed by Michael Elliott. The premiere of the show King Lear directed by David Doiashvili shall be hosted by the Grand Hall of the National Theatre of Bucharest on the days of 10th and 11th December 2016 from 7.00 p.m. !   Details      Translated by Simona Nichiteanu