Text author: Mircea Morariu
Taken from Adevarul.ro

On his first collaboration with the "Regina Maria" Theater in Oradea, the well-known actor, director and dramatic writer Radu Iacoban proposes a debate-type show entitled "Christians".

He does this by staging the relatively recent play of the same name (the premiere took place in 2015), by a young American playwright, probably named Lucas Hnath. Apparently, it is very popular in theaters across the ocean and beyond.

Christians is what I would call a smart piece of writing. In which Lucas Hnath has assimilated and incorporated an entire previous experience brought with him by this type of writing that turns a certain issue upside down, with arguments for and against. If in 12 Angry Men, for example, a play from 1957, Reginald Rose debated the theme of guilt, in 2014-2015 Lucas Hnath puts into debate, using the arguments and counter-arguments of five characters, a whole complex of themes and subthemes. All subsumed under that truth that each of us can extract from the great texts of Christianity. The Bible and the Gospels. I will list just a few of them. Have these texts been rigorously translated? Does the Bible speak of Hell or of Gehenna? Are these two words synonymous? Only those who have embraced the Christian religion are reserved the right to reach Heaven, those of other religions being denied only because of their different option? Is Christianity a dogma or something always subject to rediscovery, reinterpretation, creative meditation, determined by new social and human realities? When and how do we have the right to make our questions, doubts public? Are others prepared to listen to us, to understand us, to admit that things could be different than we all believed up to a certain moment? How real and stable are majorities? But what about loyalties? What exactly are they based on? Are we allowed to judge others? Under what conditions? Is marriage the guarantee of definitive, unlimited communion of thought? Of real closeness? What do we do when, unexpectedly, a crack appears that gnaws, spoils, demolishes an entire construction? What seemed unbreakable until then. Etc.

Text author: Adrian Țion
Taken from agenda.liternet.ro

A remarkable debut on the Romanian stage is made by the young director Alexandru Weinberger-Bara with the show Miss Julia staged at the "Regina Maria" Theater in Oradea. It is an essentialized, thrilling Strindberg, with a tense plot treated in the spirit of the Swedish playwright. The analytical introspection into the psychology of the characters is ensured by the play of experienced actors with an obvious capacity to exhibit the inner world of the play's heroes. Critic Claudiu Groza says that it is "about the (almost) impossible escape from oneself" of the captive and rival lovers at the same time, fallen prey to devouring passion. In a short nonverbal incipit, Iulia and Jean threaten each other with pistols pointed at each other, announcing the fever of the conflict.

Written by: Raluca Medeleanu
Taken from: www.specialarad.ro

The clothes that were handed to the audience – white boots and gowns – automatically foreshadowed one of the main themes of the show: birth, but also the idea of a sterile, closed environment, in which man is something foreign, an intruder, whose presence seems to not matter, has no place. Just as the audience became part of the scenery, so too did the people in the community presented in the show lose themselves in the scenery, intentionally becoming „non-existent”, for fear that nature would literally make them one and the same with it.

The show "Avalanșa", brought to the International New Theatre Festival by the "Regina Maria" Theatre in Oradea, was directed by the well-known Petru Vutcărău and, surprisingly, is based on a true story. In a small, forgotten mountain village in eastern Anatolia (Asia Minor), people are only allowed to make noise for 3 months a year, the rest of the time they are forced to live in silence, because even the slightest sound could trigger an avalanche, killing them.

Text author: Mircea Morariu
Taken from Yorick.ro

A confession by Tuncer Cücenoğlu, the author of the play Avalanche, published in the hall notebook of the Oradea show, clarifies that the writing is based on a real fact. Which the playwright learned about sometime in 1987. Somewhere, in Eastern Anatolia, there is a small town, surrounded by mountains, where people are forced by laws with strong infusions of prejudice to speak in a whisper. At least a few months a year. Not because they hold who knows what secrets that must remain that way, but to protect themselves from the danger of an avalanche. Three months a year it snows heavily in the area in question and any uncontrolled noise could be the cause of a catastrophe.

Text by: Mirabela Pop
Taken from lostinwords.blogspot.com

If someone had told me yesterday that “Miss Julia,” a play by Strindberg, performed in a 100-seat studio theater, would become my favorite of the year, I would have laughed. It’s a play that easily gets lost in the mists of time, but I’ve never seen such conviction that these few hours of a Midsummer night in late-19th-century Sweden are truly a matter of life and death.

Times and theatrical trends change, but some works remain. Last night’s production highlighted the interplay between the evanescent (time, place – elegantly evoked in design) and the enduring (the birds, the midnight disco carnival). These contrasts frame the encounter between Iulia (the count’s daughter) and Jean (her father’s valet) in the kitchen, the domain of Kristin, the cook (Jean’s fiancée). Their momentary passion will be judged by a long-term measure. Changing times also resonate today: class relations have changed, but the hope-killing status differences created by social inequality persist.

Text author: Claudiu Groza
Taken from Tribuna-Magazine.com

The Oradea International Theatre Festival took place this year at the beginning of June, postponed from September, as was traditional, for technical reasons - the modernization of the stage equipment of the theatre's main hall. Organized by the "Regina Maria" Theatre, FITO reached its 7th edition, but the Short Theatre Festival - which is now the competitive section of the event - recorded its 25th edition.

FITO opened with a premiere of the host theater, the last of the current season: The Sound of Music, with music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and libretto by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse.

The "Regina Maria" Theatre is probably the most experienced local producer of musicals, with Fiddler on the Roof (which is still being performed), Man of La Mancha and The Producers. Obviously, the local audience is always a fan of this type of show, and this was also proven with The Sound of Music, which was an ambitious bet, and a win, in my opinion.