Maya Zbib, Lebanon 
(Theater director, performer, writer, co-founder of theater company Zoukak)

It is a moment of communion, a unique encounter, not found in any other secular activity. It is the simple fact that a group of people choose to be together in the same place, at the same time, to take part in a common experience. It is an invitation to individuals to become a collective, to share their ideas, to find ways to share the burden of necessary actions… to slowly rediscover their bonds, their human connection, and to discover similarities rather than differences. Herein lies the magic of theater; here representation regains its archaic properties.

Simon McBurney, United Kingdom  
(Actor, writer, theater director and co-founder of Théâtre de Complicité)

Half a mile from Cyrenaica, in northern Libya, is a large stone shelter. 80 meters wide and 20 meters high. In the local dialect it is called Hauh Fteah. In 1951, dating analysis with 14C showed that the site had been occupied by humans continuously for at least 100,000 years. Among the artifacts unearthed was a bone whistle that was 40 to 70 thousand years old. As a child, when I heard this, I asked my father:

Ram Gopal Bajaj, India 

(Theater director, theater and film actor, academician, former director of the National School of Drama, Delhi)

After all the evolutionary stories, we know only one thing for sure, which could be summarized as follows: all life forms tend to survive for eternity. If this is possible, life tends to invade time and space, to become immortal. In this process, life forms mutilate and self-destruct on a universal level. However, we must limit our deliberation to the survival of humanity and its emancipation from the caveman, who was engaged in hunting in the Stone Age, to the Space Age that we now live in. Are we now more attentive? More sensitive? More joyful? More loving towards the nature of which we are a product?

The Regina Maria Theatre is pleased to announce the premiere of the show "Enigmatic Variations", by Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt, translated by Nicolae Weisz, directed by Elvira Rîmbu, which will take place on Friday, March 9, at 7:00 PM, at the Arcadia Hall.

The author of the text, Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt, has become one of the most widely read and performed French-language authors in the world in the last two decades. His books have been translated into 45 languages, and his plays are regularly performed in over 50 countries. He has been awarded over 20 literary prizes and distinctions, in 2001 receiving Grand Prix du Theatre for his entire work awarded by the French Academy and the title of Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres.

  The Regina Maria Theatre joins this year the national campaign "Artists for Artists", supported by UNITER. The campaign, initiated in 2002, is an annual program, with continuous development, but which has its peak in the period March - April. The aim of this initiative is to raise public awareness in order to raise funds for elderly artists with livelihood and health problems from all over the country.