Festival diary

FESTIVAL DIARY 12.

Theatre, as a form of art, is able to transfigure taboos and misery into Beauty. This beauty has deep meanings and becomes a way through which we can deal with delicate issues, since it gives us the courage to tackle them. Victor, or Power to the children, Wozzeck, and Parallel are very good examples of this process. The first one is a drama written in 1928 by the French surrealist playwright and poet Roger Vitrac (1899-1952).

FESTIVAL DIARY 11.

It is very strange to leave the theatre while the audience is still applauding the artists on the stage. I felt I was leaving a piece of me while I was collecting my coat from the cloakroom to run to a work dinner. I had the sensation that the audience was clapping so strongly that it moved the thick curtains. Last evening I left the Hungarian Theatre still feeling the magic of the show on my skin. The director In Woo Nam has brought on our stage an amazing show Sacheon-ga, based on The Good Woman of Sezchuan by Bertolt Brecht. On the stage there is a charismatic, versatile Jaram Lee; using a television expression I could call her an one woman show, just to stress more on how deep and strong her singing and acting skills are. 

FESTIVAL DIARY 10.

I woke up this morning touching my partner on the other side of the bed, his sharp-corner and silver body was just starring at me, with an interrogative expression. Yes, I have to admit it, it is a least more than one month that my laptop has replaced my boyfriend's place, and this morning when I woke up holding the plugged-in external memory, I felt like we were holding each other hand.

FESTIVAL DIARY 9.

I totally lost the time dimension, I barely know what day is today, it is like an odd and funny feeling of being high, stoned by art...I can tell, I am enthusiastically tired, I never been so happy of being busy.

Having been asked to review Phillip Adams’ Lamb, presented by Lux Boreal Danza Contemporánea, I feel it my duty to announce to the reader straight away that I’ve failed. I’ve failed for a number of reasons, the primary one being the fact that I accidentally ended up on stage as part of the performance, seated behind one of the five tiny red pianos.

FESTIVAL DIARY 7.

The morning has started with a book lunch, Teatrul Meu and Scrieri Despre Teatru. I have to say the truth, I was still with my heart and mind sinked in the Paysage Inconnu, still feeling the contradiction between Reason and Soul, between what is instantly understandable and what instead need a participation, an effort made by the audience.

FESTIVAL DIARY 6. 

Happiness. This is what I felt in the last couple of days. Long time had passed since I last felt this particular kind of happiness. It is not the one we could immediately think about, no, it is a kind of happiness which springs from that specific richness of emotions that only art can generate. Happy to be here, and now, to live a moment which will never be repeated, joy of feeling myself as a part of a whole. Happy to feel that love for art is, and has always been, something that makes the chords of my sentient soul vibrate.

FESTIVAL DIARY 5.

After five days spent next to the stage, I can say that Interferences is bringing to Cluj the heart of contemporary theatre, being a magnificent example of freedom of expression which is utterly multicultural and various.

While the city is crowded by tones of flags invading the sight and the sky, in the cosy room of the Tiff House the audience meet the Babilonia Teatri. It is very controversial if you think that a play like The End was born in a country that has in its womb the State of Vatican, with all its contradictions. The end lays bare the hypocrisy hidden in the modern religion, undermining the solid and possibly fragile Church institution, it is not a strange causality that a Pope retired for the first time in history living the space to someone who had more appeal to the people.

FESTIVAL DIARY 3. 

I was still in the dreamy atmosphere of Temps d'Image Festival when the city of Cluj was ready to open the wardrobe and wear another elegant and fancy dress; to say it in a less hermetic way the Interferences Festival has just started. This city does not leave space to boredom,  Cluj catches you  in a tight hug, charm and scented that I believe it is hard to resist. Unfortunately I lost the opening of the Festival, this morning I was on the train coming back from Bucharest, with my fingers tipping on my knees, like a child I was so excited about the festival that the 10 hours trip seemed longer than what it was, even if the view that was offered me was as beauty as a living painting. 

FESTIVAL DIARY 2.

On the second day of the Interferences International Theatre Festival two emotionally striking experiences were lived by the spectators, through the unique art of the German choreographer Pina Bausch and the mysterious dark comedy “The Merchant of Venice” by Shakespeare performed by the Israeli Habima National Theatre.