Do we need theater? This question is asked by thousands of professionals in the field, disappointed in their hopes, but also by millions of people, tired of theater. Why do we need theater? Because in the years when the stage is insignificant compared to the squares of cities and the territories of states, authentic tragedies from real life are played out. What is theater for us? Gilded boxes and balconies, velvet armchairs, dirty backstage, forced voices or vice versa – black boxes, splashed with mud and blood, in which there are a lot of naked, angry bodies. What can theater tell us? Everything! Theater can tell us everything! And how the gods live in heaven, and how prisoners suffer in caves, and how passion elevates you, and how love kills you, and how there is no need for a good man, and how lies dominate, and how people live in apartments, and children in refugee camps, and how they return to the desert, and how separations from loved ones occur.  

Theater has been and will remain forever. And in these last fifty-seventy years we absolutely need theater. Because only theater, of all the arts, means: word from mouth to mouth, eye to eye look, hand to hand gesture, body to body. It does not need a mediator, between man and man – the transparent part of light, it belongs neither to the south, nor to the north, nor to the east, nor to the west. In its own way, theater is the light that penetrates the four sides and is instantly recognized by any man, hostile or friendly. We need theater to be different. And of all the possible forms of theater, the archaic ones will be requested, first of all. The theater of ritual forms should not be fought with the theater of civilized peoples. Secular culture is emptied of content, cultural information changes simple entities among themselves, shattering the hope of meeting them. The theater is open. Entry is free. Leave the gadgets and computers to the devil – go to the theater, take the seats on the ground floor, from the balcony, listen to the word, look at the characters live – you have theater in front of you, do not underestimate it and do not let it pass unnoticed, because life passes very quickly. Any kind of theater is necessary. And we do not need just one theater – the theater of political games, the theater of the political „trap”, the theater of politicians, the theater of politics… The theater of daily terror – personal and collective, the theater of corpses and the theater of blood in squares and streets, in capitals and provinces, between religions and ethnic groups. Anatoly Vasiliev                                                           

(Romanian translation: Maria Sârbu)

Anatoly Alexandrovich Vasiliev (born May 4, 1942, Russia) is a renowned Russian theater director and one of the most important contemporary European theater directors. He is the founder of the Moscow School of Dramatic Art. Its first season opened on February 24, 1987 with Six characters in search of an author by Pirandello, a show that was very successful in Europe along with Cerceau that Viktor Slavkin wrote especially for Vasiliev's company. For Vasiliev, the actor's play is a process without beginning and end, the actors living in the theater and forming a community throughout the rehearsal period. Gradually, Vasiliev gained an international name, so in 1992 he staged at the Comédie Française Masquerade Lermontov and a year later, in Rome, Aşit is, if you think so by Luigi Pirandello. In 1997 Jeremiah's Lamentations is premiered in Avignon, then in Italy and then in Germany. This performance brought him the prize Golden mask for the best performance and the best scenography. In 2006 he moved to Europe. He worked in Paris, Lyon and London. Three years later, he was invited to the Bolshoi Theater to stage Don Giovanni. This year he staged at the French Comedy, The Second Music by Marguerite Duras.