Twelfth night, a play written around 1600, became “a new haven in Shakespeare’s comedy.” This was noted by Haig Akterian in his famous monograph Shakespeare Which, some 80 years after its appearance, still retains its relevance, although much progress has been made in terms of establishment and interpretation the Shakespearean canon. IN Twelfth nightAccording to the same exegete, some themes of earlier comedies are treated in more precise forms and merged into one action. The master’s confidence dresses up old events in the embroidery of new details, achieving a masterpiece.”

This masterpiece, extremely present on Romanian billboards (I believe it is Shakespeare’s work most often performed on Romanian stages), is known to have several titles, and this wealth is far from (just) a simple whim. The song is called Epiphany (this name was chosen by Andrii Sherban for a play staged in the early 1990s on the stage of the National Theater in Bucharest). It is also called The next night the fair was broken up (one of the titles chosen by Silviu Purkerete during the production of the play in 2004 at the National Theater in Craiova). This time we are talking about a name that is very close in meaning to the one that has become the most popular, because “the night after the fair”, according to a simple calculation, is the twelfth after Christmas. Epiphany has come, the night that marks the end of the winter holidays. The night when you part, with some melancholy, perhaps even a little sadness from the feast and celebration, and return to the ordinary. A night that should also be the most fun, full of adventure, humor and good mood, precisely because at the moment it last. This marks the climax of the carnival. Otherwise, the preview of the first production of the text was supposed to take place on January 6, 1602. Apparently, for various reasons, the preview was postponed. Finally, the work also has a title, also translated by us What do you want, OR What would you like?which reappeared on the bill of the show thanks to Silvio Purcarete.

It What for or As I would like the Polish critic Andrzej Zhurowski considers it the most important. And that’s because it opens up more tracks. “What you want is what you choose. Exactly – what do you choose? Which attitude is closer to you? Sir Belch or Malvolio? Or maybe Viola or Cesario? But at the same time, we must turn to other meanings of the phrase. what will you be what do you dream about What do you desire in the depths of your soul? And then it turns out that what you want or what you finally have to accept, doesn’t necessarily have to be what you dreamed of.”

Director Aleksandru Mazgarianu staged the text at the Oradea Theater ten years ago. Only this time he took a different point of view. I think that Alexandru Mazgarianu has since been meditating and trying to correct his failures. He had enough wisdom and professional integrity not to do this Twelfth night or Night of the Magi paste a copy But the play in which he offers a new look at the text and characters. In my opinion, much more solid.

The director doesn’t seem to have any bias towards any of the characters. Of course, this could not be more irreconcilable with Malvolio depicted in aqua forte. Excellent performance by Alexandra Jitea. He is concerned with the mix of comical, funny, otherwise funny, good, Italian origins from which characters such as Maria (Luminița Erga), Sir Andrew (Sorin Kocsis), Sir Toby (Mihai Marinescu) and Fabian (Lucian Gimici) come from. . He combines well-known songs with original music composed by Alexandre Suchiu, a composer he also used for the Oradean version, but this time things are much better. There is a welcome balance between the moments sung in the two parts of the show. In the second, the comic is richer, more authentic. In the second part, the rhythm is more lively. And Shakespeare is not entirely to blame for this imbalance. The director is no longer a supporter of Orsino, he does not give him a privileged role. Dan Bordeianu plays the character in a passionately complex way in the first part, when he suffers from the repeated rejections of Olivia, Orsino takes on a calm serenity when he finds his happiness with Viola. In the smile, in the wisdom of the character who has found his love, it seems to see something of the complexity of Prospero and his reconciliation with life. – Read the entire article and comment on Contributors.ro