Pyramus & Thisbe 4 You - Teatrul Odeon

based on William Shakespeare, directed by Alexandru Dabija

Cast

Prologue Mircea Constantinescu
Quince Dorina Lazăr
Nicoleta Fundoianu / Bottom – Pyramus: Oana Ștefănescu
Francesca Pitigoi / Flute – Thisbe: Antoaneta Zaharia / Ada Simionică
Snug – Leul: Ana Maria Moldovan
Snout – Zidul: Paula Niculiţă
Starvelling – Luna: Rodica Mandache
Theseus: Mihai Smarandache
Hippolyta: Marius Damian
Egeus: Pavel Bartoş

Gutman / Quince: Ionel Mihăilescu
Nicu Fundoianu / Bottom – Pyramus: Marius Damian
Francisc Cucu / Flute – Thisbe: Mihai Smarandache
Snug – Leul: Rodica Mandache
Toma Nanau / Snout – Zidul: Ana Maria Moldovan
Starvelling – Luna: Gabriel Pintilei
Theseus: Mircea Constantinescu
Egeus: Oana Ștefănescu
Hippolyta: Paula Niculiţă
The lovers: Antoaneta Zaharia / Ada Simionică / Pavel Bartoş

Quince: Marius Damian
Fennek / Bottom – Pyramus: Pavel Bartoş
Flute – Thisbe: Rodica Mandache
Snug – Leul: Gabriel Pintilei
Snout – Zidul: Mihai Smarandache
Theseus: Mircea Constantinescu
Egeus: Oana Ștefănescu
Hippolyta: Paula Niculiţă

Quince: Cristian Dunăreanu (props man)
Pyramus / Bottom: Victor Cociorba (stage handlers)
Thisbe / Flute: Dan Iosif (stage manager)
Snug: Nicu Coman (stage handler)
Snout: Constantin Neagu (stage handler)
Starveling: Dumitru Neagu (props man)
Prologue: Ion Iosif (stage handler)

Directed by: Alexandru Dabija
Stage design: Cosmin Ardeleanu
Visuals: Casa Gontz
Translated by: Andrei Marinescu

Tours and festivals

The days of Elvira Godeanu, Târgu-Jiu, May 19, 2014
Tour at Sofia, Bulgary, March 25, 2014
Comedy Festival, Brasov, May 8, 2013
International Theatre Festival in Ruse, Bulgaria, 14 June 2012
Theatre Festival, Caracal, 3 May 2012
International Theatre Festival, Iaşi, 11 October 2011
Short Theatre Festival, Oradea, 27 September 2011
International Shakespeare Festival, Bucharest, May 9, 2010
Interference International Theatre Festival in Cluj, December 7, 2010
Eurothalia Theatre Festival in Timisoara, November 16, 2010
Theatre Festival in Piatra Neamt, October 24, 2010
National Comedy Festival in Galați, October 9, 2010
International Theatre Festival in Alba Iulia, September 29, 2010
International Theatre Festival in Sibiu, June 4, 2010
BITEI Festival in Chisinau, May 23, 2010
Theatre Festival in Satu Mare, May 19, 2010
VedeTeatru festival in Buzau, May 16, 2010
International Shakespeare Festival, Bucharest, May 9, 2010
Tour in Brasov, February 25, 2010
Classic Theatre Festival in Arad, October 13, 2009

Awards

Alexandru Dabija - Uniter Award for Best Director, 2010

Photo gallery

Photos by Cosmin Ardeleanu

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In this new production of Odeon Theatre in Bucharest, Alexandru Dabija, one of the most dinamic stage directors of the moment, multiplies by four the classical theatre in the theatre situation from A midsummer night’s dream, the famous scene of the mechanicals. Every version reads the scene in a different register, all of them parodies of several trends in contemporary Romanian theater. The first one is performed by only women. The second one enters the environment of bigoted experimentalist artists. The third one stages a confrontation between a Hungarian actor and a bunch of bored Moldavians, while the last one brings for the first time on stage the very mechanicals of the theatre. In the new, original translation/adaptation of Andrei Marinescu, the show is fabulously funny, incapable of taking itself seriously, speaking about the shortcomings of both the theatre and its practitioners. Although Dabija, perfectly followed by the actors, openly uses the theatrical technique and even overexploits it, the allusions to specific artistical practices don’t make the show inaccessible to the ingeneous public. The language is very well simply used and the dramatic construction takes care of all details, still avoiding the dangers of repetition. Dabija is welknown for his subtle way of avoiding clichés and surprising public’s expectations. His new Odeon show is a clever one, full of pungent irony.

Iulia Popovici

Opening date: September 19, 2009

Duration: 1h 30'

Press Reviews

What Dabija brings into attention is a performance-school of convention. Each scene becomes a study of shaking the mechanisms of assuming the convention.
Parody as a refined form of delight and making fun as art are more then stylistic ways for Dabija. These are the playing subjects for this director that makes theatre for that he could laugh extensively and very well, to discover how laughter can become a way to study in theatre. How this laughter can submit a study about theatrical sociology and entertainment for a wise audience. In fact a Tarantinian laughter that loudly gurgle.

Mihaela Michailov – www.artactmagazine.ro

I find Alexandru Dabija’s show at the Odeon Theatre Pyramus & Thisbe 4 You brilliant. I think that is an analysis of our world and, implicitly, of the way theater is done, starting from a pure analysis of the structure of the language. Shakespeare's fictional discourse is, in fact, the subject of investigation. (...) The idea of the director seems fantastic! (...) Andrei Marinescu, the translator, found four types of formulations, four ways to translate and adapt the English passages in question. The four ways of speaking born, automatic, four types of show, completely different, though, the text seems to be the same, Shakespeare. What happens? The desire to play of the director is underlined by his intellectual force. By a very special sense of observation. The artist concerned with the language, the true value of the word, rhetoric - today, pragmatic - and poetic. A person who makes games based on what is written.

Marina Constantinescu – România Literară

The performance from Odeon, inoffensively called Pyramus and Thysbe 4 you, transforms itself in a cruel chronicle or Romanian theatre after 20 years, and it is like a large essay about "the glory and the fall" of our theatrical art, about all the unworthy ambitions, lazy surfeit, the absurd interethnic collisions that have poisoned and still poison the area of Romanian scene. It is a comedy that makes you laugh with tears and that exorcize all the negativity raised many time in the building of Romanian theatres. Or a big part of it.
The performance directed by Alexandru Dabija in the opening of a new season of Odeon Theatre is not only a complicated but fascinating exercise for actors, but also an interesting staging project associated with a new translation/adaptation/ dramaturgical revision meant to be used for the purposes exactly established by the creator of show. It reminds you the pleasure to see a creation that has a meaning, in which one can perceive, behind the shape, a powerful and wise thought. This is the kind of show that you will be missing, especially when you are professional spectator in Romanian theatre.

Cristina Modreanu – www.artactmagazine.ro

So free in his choices, Alexandru Dabija enlarges to global dimensions the questions he is putting to himself, with an admirable consistency: why we are (still) making theatre? And for the way he is realizing it, one deserves to laugh plenty to the best show from Bucharest at this time.

Iulia Popovici – Observatorul Cultural

Pyramus & Thisbe 4 You is the kind of show that one wishes to see it again, immediately after it is over. (...) Dabija’s performance is a brave madness and isn’t stepping any limit of politeness (even though many moments paralyze entire seconds your attention).

Dan Boicea – Adevărul

Dabija and his actors play with epochs, spaces, typologies, clichés, and meanings of reading and succeed to make the best show of entertainment from the scenes of Bucharest. More, it is a staging that has many chances to satisfy the taste of a refined audience, but also for the ones that come to theatre just for fun.

Robert Bălan – România Liberă