2015 “Toma Caragiu” Theatre Festival in Ploiesti

The “Toma Caragiu Theatre in Ploiesti, southern Romania, organised the 5th edition of the “Toma Caragiu Theatre Festival in mid-May.

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Luana Pleşea, 06.06.2015, 14:26

The “Toma Caragiu Theatre in Ploiesti, southern Romania, organised the 5th edition of the “Toma Caragiu Theatre Festival in mid-May. This years offer for theatregoers in Ploiesti carried on the trend that had been set a year ago, with a programme called “The New Wave – the Directors Face, a privileged area for directors encounters. Such young stage directors as Sânziana Stoican, Mariana Cămărăşan, Andreea and Andrei Grosu, Horia Suru and Dragos Alexandru Musoiu were the names to be found on the festivals posters, alongside well-established directors such as Victor Ioan Frunza, Cristi Juncu and Razvan Mazilu.

Theatre critic Andreea Dumitru is the festivals selector as of last year: “Our intention was to carry on with the challenge we set for ourselves at the inaugural edition, meaning that this festival can have an identity of its own, a profile capable of setting it apart from the great number of theatre festivals across the country. And we continued with the Directors Encounters theme, which managed to bring over what we wanted in the previous edition, namely as great a number as possible of young stage directors, for the official selection. Of the nine directors who entered the festival this year with their productions, six are very young. One of them, Dragos Musoiu, is a first-timer, we brought his debut performance with Craiovas National Theatre. Its interesting to note how these young directors approaches to the text, to the stage space, to the actors, are extremely different from one another, and that theyre not afraid of tackling great texts.

The selector of the festival Andreea Dumitru has also told us theatregoers in Ploiesti gave a very warm welcome to young directors: “The performances may not be the most experienced ones or the most innovative, aesthetically speaking. Rather, these plays have been staged to ensure their success with the audiences, which I believe is something extraordinary nonetheless, because for a festival with a smaller number of performances on the agenda, with a maximum number of two shows per night, for such a festival it is better that performances get full house, and not an empty house. These shows are very good, the acting is fine—we could see that on all the evenings – and they have very substantial structures. And we have set out to shape our target audiences for other types of shows as well, more daring, aesthetically speaking. That is why during the festival this year, we set up meetings with our future theatregoers – high-school and university students from Ploiesti – held at the University or the County Library. There they had the chance to talk face-to-face with Răzvan Mazilu, with Claudiu Bleonţ, with the personalities who year attended the festival this.

One such meeting was occasioned by the anniversary of 90 years since the birth of the late actor Toma Caragiu, who spent his childhood in Ploiesi and went on to became the director of the State Theatre in the same town.

The host of the event held at the “Nicolae Iorga County Library was director Mihai Lungeanu, who works with Radio Romanias Radio Drama Department: “We capitalized on the fact that Mrs. Magda Dutu, our colleague, had recorded two CDs devoted to Toma Caragiu and we came up with the idea of staging an audition in which radio drama and theatre lovers in general may find out things about Toma Caragiu that they cannot learn from other sources. Furthermore, wed like to stage a contest for the young, who dont know the actor, and the main prize will be the two CDs with Toma Caragiu. That proved a good idea both for theatre in general and also for us, because we want to put radio theatre back into the cultural horizon of the young generation.

So, during this series of meetings with young directors, the Toma Caragiu Theatre, the festivals main organizer, staged in premiere Tennessee Williams The Glass Menagerie directed by young Sanziana Stoican and performed by actors from the Ploiesti theatre. We asked Sanziana Stoican why the Glass Menagerie? “Its because of this universe of a shattered family, where a young man tries to find his way in life and in order to do that he has to accept other values than those he feels he should believe in. I was captivated by all these family relations and took a liking to the text. These are time enduring themes, because family ties do not change and the social context when the play was written is very similar to what we see now. That was a period of economic crisis, when unemployment was high and people had to resort to many tricks to survive. As I said, there are many similarities with what we see now in Romania. But at the same time, I wanted to preserve a certain tinge of that time for I believe its essential for the play.

In a theatre landscapes fraught with festivals, the Toma Caragiu Festival in Ploiesti has its well-deserved place. Here is selector Andreea Dumitru: “It is a privilege for the community in Ploiesti to have a festival of its own that brings together some of the seasons best shows. It is also a good idea for the Romanian theatre in general and we got a positive feedback on that just as we did in the previous edition, after we had staged a directing festival. At that time many theatre people confirmed that it was a good idea, because its easier for actors to prove their skills on stage, whereas a directors art cannot be assessed that easily, although its the director who has the most important role in staging a play. They are also important for the international theatre movement. Foreign agents come to Romania to scout new talents among directors first and then they look at actors or other categories. So, I wish this festival were a launch pad for the most talented directors and the most valuable productions of established directors.