Hungarian Theater Festival Takes Place in the Romanian Capital

A scene from Six Characters in Search of an Author performed by the Tomcsa Sándor Theater

The Transylvanian Hungarian Theatrical Association in Romania, uniting five Transylvanian theater, will organize the second edition of the Bukfeszt Hungarian Theater Festival in the Romanian capital between 27 September and 2 October.

Attila Balázs, president of MASZÍN and director of the Csiky Gergely Hungarian State Theater in Timisoara (Temesvár), said that at last year’s event in Bucharest the Hungarian theater companies tested themselves in front of a new, mostly Romanian audience, and the sold-out performances proved that there was a huge interest and it was worth returning. This year, Hungarian and Romanian audiences in Bucharest will be able to see seven performances by the Csiky Gergely Hungarian State Theater, the Szigligeti Theater from Oradea (Nagyvárad), the Northern Theater Harag György Company from Satu Mare (Szatmárnémeti), the Csík Theater from Miercurea Ciuc (Csíkszereda), and the Tomcsa Sándor Theater from Odorheiu Secuiesc (Székelyudvarhely) in the main hall and studio of the Odeon Theater in Bucharest.

This year’s Bukfeszt program includes the play Exit by Matei Visniec performed by the Tomcsa Sándor Theater, Caravaggio performed by the theater company from Timisoara, Luigi Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author performed by the Tomcsa Sándor Theater, Boris Vian’s Le Schmurz performed by the Szigligeti Theater and the Oradea (Nagyvárad) Dance Ensemble. Moreover, the audiences can see Gianina Carbunariu’s Magyarosaurus Dacus also performed by the Szigligeti Theater.

The program also includes Sheldon Harnick, Jerry Bock, and Joseph Stein’s world-famous musical Fiddler on the Roof, directed by Erwin Simsensohn, performed by the Csík Theater, and Frederick Loewe and Alan Jay Lerner’s My Fair Lady, directed by Andrei Serban, performed by the theater company from Satu Mare.

The initiators consider it important to promote the member institutions and to strengthen the relations between the theaters. Minority theaters are less visible on the Romanian cultural map, so the aim is to also give these companies the opportunity to offer critics who are far away due to geographical distance the chance to see their valuable performances in the Romanian capital.

At the same time, the organizers would like their performances to be accessible to the general public in the Romanian capital, as

every new encounter, every new audience, especially those who have never seen the work of Hungarian-language theaters in Romania, brings a new perspective, a fresh point of view, and an exciting opportunity for the actors to show their work.

For non-Hungarian-speaking audiences, performances will be subtitled in Romanian and English. The festival, initiated by MASZÍN and organized in cooperation with the UNITER (Romanian Theater Union), is supported by the Department for Interethnic Relations, the Communitas Foundation, and the Bethlen Gábor Fund Management Ltd.

Via MTI, Featured image: Facebook/Bukfeszt