The 2015-2016 season at the Hungarian State Theatre in Cluj Napoca

The scene of many outstanding and award-winning productions, the Hungarian State Theatre in Cluj Napoca is hailed as one of the best theatres in Romania.

Luana Pleşea, 17.10.2015, 16:28

For the new season,
it has prepared seven new productions. Here is the theatre’s artistic director,
Andras Visky.

Andras Visky: The
Hungarian State Theatre serves a community open to a relatively wide variety of
genres, from contemporary projects to classic pieces, not to mention that every
new season we also try to have at least one production for children.

The first of the
theatre’s new productions opened on the 9th of October and is a
staging of Shakespeare’s ‘Julius Caesar’ by the celebrated Romanian theatre
director Silviu Purcarete. Andras Visky, who also wrote the script, told us
more:

Andras Visky: Unfortunately, Julius Caesar is a very
topical play. It is a political play and this political dimension
characterises, from a universal perspective, these times of transition in which
we live. I’m not referring only to Romania, but to the European Union in
particular. We discern, in the way in which Silviu Purcarete approaches this
Shakespearean play, both his usual style and the Shakespearean pessimism that
acquires a special significance today. Shakespeare’s historical plays always
have an apocalyptic ending, everybody basically disappears from the scene to
leave room for a new generation who often does not promise a profound
reconciliation with the past. However, unless we have a self-reflexive and
cathartic relationship with the past, the past will stay with us. I think the
central metaphor in this production is Caesar’s dead body, which remains,
however, the witness of the events taking place on the stage. The problem with
any staging of Shakespeare is always the text, the register chosen for each new
production. Silviu Purcarate asked me to come up with a poetic and at the same
time contemporary script.

The next performance
to be staged by the Hungarian State Theatre in Cluj Napoca is a show about
migration based on Franz Kakfa’s ‘Amerika’ staged by the director of the
National Theatre in Prague, Michal Docekal. Another new production is ‘The
Clumsy Wizard’ by Pal Bekes, a musical for children staged by Laszlo Beres. In February
2016, Felix Alexa returns to the Hungarian State Theatre with a staging of
August Strindberg’s ‘The Pelican’. According to the theatre’s artistic director
Andras Visky, this is a less known text and has never been staged in Hungarian
before.

One month later, in March 2016, a French
theatre director and winner of two Tony awards, Dominique Serrand, will stage
an experimental musical performance based on classical music requiems. May 2016
will see the first ever staging of ‘The Galoshes’, written by a playwright born
in Targu Mures, Gyorgy Dragoman, and staged by a well-known film director,
Janos Szasz. Finally, Mihaela Panaite will stage a performance based on a poem
entitled ‘The Old People’s Book’ by Domokos Szilagyi, who is considered by Andras
Visky as the most important Transylvanian poet of the 1960s and 70s. According
to the artistic director of the Hungarian State Theatre in Cluj Napoca, the
purpose of this institution is to serve its spectators and its community.

Andras Visky: As
someone involved in the theatre’s communications strategy, I have worked on
promoting an image of the theatre as a theatre of the city, slightly distancing
ourselves from the idea of a minority theatre, because in a global culture, we
are all a minority. I don’t think there is anything negative in this view,
because culture itself, the arts and literature, is a minority aspect of our
daily life. From this point of view, of the minority position, I consider
myself an agent of the essence of culture. So we are a city’s theatre. This
means that each of our productions is subtitled, so the number of our Romanian
language spectators is growing. They take part in many discussions and
different regional programmes and there is a palpable feeling that our theatre
has become a theatre of the entire city and the region and also has a presence
on the theatrical scene in Romania. We take part in important festivals. At the
same time, as members of the Union of the Theatres of Europe, we are naturally
part of the European theatrical movement. We take part in many festivals and
this is very important both for the directors who work with us and for our
company’s actors. It is important for us to be engaged in this European and
universal cultural dialogue.