By Verity Healey
In May 2022 UK theatre writer Verity Healey was invited to attend TheatreIST, a new independent theatre showcase in İstanbul. TheatreIST was brainchild of the late Ragıp Ertuğrul—a well-known and much-loved and respected playwright, critic, and director …
By Mark Dean
Counting and Cracking, presented at the Edinburgh International Festival this summer, is a realistic, heartfelt, multigenerational, multinational family saga delivered in four languages, with 19 performers over three and a half hours. The hour-long Materia, …
by Philip Wiles
Thanks to a generous grant from the Sidney E. Cohn and Lucille Lortel Chairs at the CUNY Graduate Center, I was able to arrange a short stay in Berlin (with a brief excursion to Hamburg) to see …
By Ionica Pascanu
In the early 1990s, Constantin Chiriac, the President of the Sibiu International Theatre Festival, had a dream: to develop the cultural background of the city, in general, and theatre and performing arts in particular, and furthermore to …
by Steve Earnest
As both the Danish and Faroese Theatre systems recovered from the nearly two-year pause of live theatre performances, Copenhagen and Tórshavn saw some movement forward in late Spring and Fall 2022. The strength of the Danish arts …
By Cristina Modreanu
For 14 days, between September 5 and 18, a small city in Romania became the stage for a series of events: new theatre performances from all over the country and from the neighbouring countries, exhibitions (Virus Diary,
by Alina Epîngeac
In Romania we have a word that is supposed to be untranslatable; its meaning has a correspondent in the Portuguese saudade and covers the feelings implied by the English longing, the French désir and the Spanish nostalgia…
By Duncan Wheeler
Nearly three and a half decades ago, Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios/Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988) broke box-office records in Spain and marked filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar’s US commercial breakout. Depicting …
By Thomas Oberender
When I asked the friendly salesman at the ticket counter of Det Norske Teatret how long the performance of Hedda Gabler by Vegard Vinge and Ida Müller lasts, he said, officially four hours, but we gave the …
By Julia Storch
The Smile Off Your Face left me with my body coursing with adrenaline, stemming in large part from the restriction of my sight, a sense heavily relied upon. Unlike other shows which invoke blindness to heighten their …
by Alina Epîngeac
What does “renowned” mean anymore? Nowadays, when history seems to be as relative as anything, when aesthetics and culture are exchanged with an emphasis on social and political matters, what are the performance qualities that can serve …
By Ognjen Obradović
Since its foundation in 1967, Bitef (Belgrade International Theatre Festival) has been associated with new theatre trends. Owing to a continuous transformation of performing arts, theatrical production has been in constant change; however, Bitef has managed to …
By Maria Delgado
Adieu Arturo/Goodbye, La Cubana, Teatre Coliseum
I watched the La Cubana’s Catalan iteration of Adios Arturo, titled Adieu Arturo/Goodbye Arturo at the Coliseum Theatre Barcelona two days after the death of one of La Cubana’s key actors, …
By Marvin Carlson
Prevented from visiting Berlin, my favorite theatre city, by the pandemic, I hoped to return early in 2022, but an upsurge in Covid struck the city early in the year and it was not until the first …
by Philippa Wehle
The Avignon Festival, July 7 to 26, 2022, director Olivier Py’s last festival after an eight-year leadership, introduced new voices and unknown works by artists from many different countries. Nine out of the forty-one official shows were …
By Anton Pujol
“Exhaurides les localitats” (Sold out) became a ubiquitous sign across most venues for performances from this year’s Barcelona Grec Festival. The 46th edition of the annual festival was highly anticipated because once again it was under …
By Katarzyna Biela
In Poland, 13 December is commonly associated with the implementation of martial law, announced in 1981 by General Wojciech Jaruzelski, which introduced repressive restrictions valid until 1983. In 2021 the day was chosen for the premiere of …
