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Torrid Summer, with the NTB Triumph at Prestigious Festivals from South-Eastern Europe
Two highly successful tours of the “I. L. Caragiale” National Theatre of Bucharest have taken place this summer, two invitations launched by prestigious international festivals were honoured with artistic brilliance, both on the part of the NTB troupe, and the Romanian and foreign artists invited to work on the stages of this theatre. Two unconventional enactments were shown to the world in spaces of a breathtaking beauty, seemingly meant to lend magic of their own to the shows and audience, itself spellbound.
Directed by renowned Bulgarian director Alexander Morfov and in the playful-Shakespearean scenery created by Nikola Toromanov (scenographer honoured at the UNITER Awards Gala for a previous creation, The Visit), Romanian actors led by Ion Caramitru, the performer of the magician Prospero, have performed, on two evening in a row, on 5th and 6th July 2017, with a fabulous success, Shakespeare’s Tempest in a typically Greek amphitheater, in Thessaloniki, within the first international edition of the already traditional NTNG Forest Festival.
Surrounded by a forest and with the sea as a background, the amphitheater was seized with the spell whom the witnesses of this show describe as a blessing, something exceeding expectations and impossible to forget. „The vault over their heads collapsed and the lights of Thessaloniki stretched beneath their feet. There was a certain magic of the evening and the place, which made one finally say: yes, of course, Prospero has also invented theatre, with his laughter mingled with tears, with his power to figure and disfigure, with his immense joy of communication, beyond the podium and proscenium, beyond the thousands of stone benches, over the valley revealing the lights of the city of Thessaloniki, over centuries. Yes, Caramitru, that melancholy man with baggy pants and large sweater has certainly created on the evening of the show in Greece theatre, as well", exclaimed enthusiastically the writer of Romanian origin Monica Săvulescu – Voudouri. Not less interested by the „exotic story, by the imaginative play, with visual discoveries and performance techniques”, Angela Mantziou was analysing – in a review published in City Culture, various details of the fascinating stage design, insisting upon Alexander Morfov’s creation. „The directorial view has unveiled the dark complex of energy, the power of art and of bold fantasy, the illusory appearance, as well as the world of human beings and spirits, in a story about revenge, knowledge and poetic passion”.
„I believe that it has been one of the most significant tours of the National Theatre throughout the recent history of this theatre”, declared Ion Caramitru upon his return to Romania.
The next participation, with Magic National, in the Ohrid Summer Festival has been described by one of the major Macedonian publications as a real triumph. And this performance took place in open air, in an amphitheatre with wooden seat rows, bursting with an audience which has professed a special interest for the concert-show of the National Theatre of Bucharest. The scenery provided by the façade of an old church, Saint Sophia of Ohrid, fairy-like illuminated through inspired projections, on a mellow evening at the beginning of August hosted one of the most fascinating representations of Magic National, unusual show for the NTB repertoire, in which actors are singing and dancing, on engaging rhythms, in a perfect poetic and musical osmosis, performed by Emy Drăgoi, the King of Accordion Jazz, joined by his bands. And the evening could not have been perfect, if Ion Caramitru had not brought Mioriţa closer to their soul, in Aromanian, a prayer for forgiveness for all the evil in the world, for all the envy and betrayal, addressed from the threshold of an old church towards the starry canopy.
„Within the framework of the „Оhridsko leto /Ohrid Summer Festival”, a wonderful event recently took place for the European and Romanian poetry, through the visit of the National Theatre of Bucharest with a plethora of theatre and musical legends. This poetic and musical triumph shall linger on for a long time in the memory of the Ohrid Festival as a bright sky of the human soul – Nova Makedonija was noting, one of the major Macedonian publication. „Through pace, rhyme and the alignment of spheres, on this starry evening, poetry and music have completed each other, touching and embracing in a perfect artistic oeuvre”.
Numerous other publications have greeted with heightened interest the participation of the National Theatre of Bucharest in the 57th edition of the Ohrid Summer Festival, on the evening of 7th August 2017.
As a fellow journalist was noting on site, starting with this representation, Magic National has become Magic International. And from then onwards, the path of the NTB concert-show is open to further participations abroad.
It has been a torrid summer, but also a very special one, a truly Magical one! „I believe we came back from there crowned by the joy of a special public acknowledgement, but also with a very special moral satisfaction”, further stated, at the end of the tour, Ion Caramitru, performer and director, manager of the „I.L. Caragiale” National Theatre of Bucharest.
Translated by Simona Nichiteanu
