Opening night: the 23rd of April 2004CAST
The child…………………............................................…….ANTOANETA ZAHARIA
The mother…............................................………………….ADRIANA TRANDAFIR
Her father………………............................................………IONEL MIHAILESCU
Her sister………………............................................…...….ADA MILEA
Aunt Reti………............................................………….……OANA STEFANESCU
The lover………….............................................……………PAVEL BARTOS
The producer
Child Eric
The Harlequin………..............................................………..GABRIEL PINTILEI
Frau Hitz
The dead man
2 circus men…………..............................................………DAN IOSIF, MARIUS MANEA
Another kind of circus man.............................................… VICTOR COCIORBAStage direction …........................................……………….RADU AFRIM
Stage design………...............................................………..ALINA HERESCU
Songs…………................................................…………….ADA MILEA
Great Aword at Theatre Festival Piatra Neamt , XVIII Edition, 2003
Award for the best woman interpretation for Antoaneta Zaharia at Theatre Festival Piatra Neamt, XVIII Edition 2003
Best stage direction for Radu Afrim at Festival of Contemporary Dramaturgy, XV Edition, Brasov , 2003
Best stage design for Alina Herescu at Festival of Contemporary Dramaturgy, XV Edition, Brasov , 2003
Special Jury Award for Antoaneta Zaharia at Festival of Contemporary Dramaturgy, XV Edition, Brasov, 2003
The Award for the Best Actress for Adriana Trandafir at Festival of Contemporary Dramaturgy, XV Edition, Brasov , 2003
UNITER 2004, the Award for the Best Actress in secondary part for Adriana Trandafir
Nominalization UNITER 2004 for The Best Actress for Antoaneta Zaharia
It’s a charming story about a family of circus people, who spend their life on the road.The performance tells the story of this family seen trough the eyes of a child whose existence becomes a gigantic circus show, performed on the earth and in the sky, a voyage with guardian angels and terrifying threats.
It’s the story of a little girl who fears continuously that her mother, the woman with the steel hair (who hangs by her hair from the top of the circus)
could die. The child’s fears are annihilated by her sister’s tales about the child who boils in the polenta.
The director manages to render the essence of the novel, its lyrical and philosophical tone, the discontinuous narrative flow.
The dramatic moments are not ostentatious or pathetic. They have depth and power. It’s a dynamic and moving staging.
In the performance, music isn’t just a support, designed to make the performance accessible or pleasing, but a decisive element for rendering the message. Ada Milea’s songs are neither nice, nor harmonious. They translate the weeping of the child in the polenta. Antoaneta Zaharia has found the feature that brings together child and adult, namely fear. She lives in a terrible world, but the thought of losing it terrifies her. Adriana Trandafir, Oana Stefanescu, Gabriel Pintilei and Pavel Bartos combine the grotesque of the circus performance with dramatic reasons.
The staging exults humour and playfulness.
Why does the child boil in the polenta ? Because we are afraid. Horror, as the source of the dream, is Afrim’s key to Aglaja Veteranyi’s poem.
