Twelfth Night or the Night of the Magi

By William Shakespeare

Translator: Mihnea Gheorghiu

Company name: Nottara Theater Bucharest

Company country: Romania

Director: Alexandru Mâzgăreanu

Distribution:

Cerasela Iosifescu – Olivia 

Luminita Erga – Maria

Daria Pentelie – Viola

Dan Bordeianu – Orsino

Alexandru Jitea – Malvolio 

Sorin Cociș – Sir Andrew

Mihai Marinescu – Sir Toby 

Lucian Ghimiși – Fabian

Tudor Cucu Dumitrescu – Celebrations 

Rares Andrici – Sebastian

Răzvan Bănică – Antonio

Filip Ristovski – Valentin, Curio, Officer 1 

Mircea Teodorescu – Captain, Officer 2

The creative team:

The stage version of the text – Alexandru Mâzgăreanu

Decor – Andreea Săndulescu

Costumes – Alexandra Boerescu

Music – Alexandru Suciu

Choreography – Ioana Marchidan 

Lighting design – Daniel Klinger

Show synopsis:

A story of love and illusion, the most beautiful romantic comedy ever written, Twelfth Night is a game of time, space and identities. Among quiproquos, farces and travesties, Shakespeare's play essentially proposes an ironic perspective on love, this (in)explicable state, giving rise to sorrows and "divine joys" in equal measure.

Set in a timeless, hippie, flower-power Illyria, a paradise of music and freedom, where all other concerns than eroticism are suspended, the story today is primarily about erotic ambiguity, about search and about impulses ancestral. 

This superb play of masks and identities, read in a contemporary key, is the epicenter of the show staged by Alexandru Mâzgăreanu, which humorously explores the poetry of the androgynous myth, translated into the 21st century, and subtly reveals mechanisms of seduction, juggling nuances and sensitivities, with lights and shadows, with pieces of yin and yang unfolded and then put back together, like in a puzzle, "analyzing" through gestures, looks and voice inflections the differences and similarities in love, seen from different perspectives, loves which center on the two poses of Viola and which are, in fact, based on a dose of homosexuality, poetically explored on stage.

Nominations and/or show awards:

The award for the best actor, Tudor Cucu Dumitrescu, the role of Feste, the National Comedy Festival in Galaţi.

Company description:

Founded in 1947, the Nottara Theater is one of the most prestigious cultural institutions in Romania. One of the repertory theaters of Bucharest, Teatrul Nottara is a public institution, which operates under the authority of the Bucharest City Hall and the General Council of the City of Bucharest and benefits from two halls, which bear the names of two great personalities who marked them existence, the "Horia Lovinescu" Hall and the "George Constantin" Hall. Its repertoire includes productions by some of the best-known Romanian directors, based on important texts from classical and contemporary dramaturgy, the theater proposing to bring to the public topical themes or classical themes revisited in a contemporary key. 

Director biography:

Alexandru Mâzgăreanu is one of the best known and most appreciated directors of his generation. He is a graduate of the Department of Directing of the National University of Theater and Cinematography "IL Caragiale" in Bucharest. At the age of 37, Alexandru Mâzgăreanu is the manager of the Nottara Theater in Bucharest and has worked in the most important theaters in Romania, directed over 30 shows in professional theaters, which were selected and participated in national and international festivals and were nominated and awarded at prestigious competitions. In 2011, he was nominated at the UNITER Gala, Debut section, for directing the show "The Officials" after AP Cehov, production of the Metropolis Theater Bucharest. He also won the Best Director Award at the "Comedy Holds YOUNG" Gala for the show "The Romantics" (2008). In 2020, he was nominated for the UNITER awards, in the Best Director section, for the show "Nameless Star" by Mihail Sebastian, staged at the Piatra Neamţ Youth Theatre. Among the prestigious theaters where he worked are: "IL Caragiale" National Theater in Bucharest, Bulandra Theater, Odeon Theater, Comedy Theater, Nottara Theater, Excelsior Theater Bucharest, ArCuB, Act Theater, Metropolis Theater, "Regina Maria" Theater in Oradea, the Youth Theater in Piatra Neamț, the "Toma Caragiu" Theater in Ploiesti, the "Maria Filotti" Theater in Brăila.

Director nominations and/or awards:

Nomination at the 2011 UNITER Awards Gala in the Debut category, Nomination at the UNITER Awards Gala in the Best Director category, in 2011, the Award for the best director, as part of the "Comedy is for YOUNG" Gala

Show duration: 2h 30 minutes (with a break)

Special mentions show: For audiences over 9 years old