The production, OUR CLASS by Tadeusz Słobodzianek, directed by László Bocsárdi, received The Award for Best Production of 2015, within the UNITER Award Gala. Considered the most prestigious award of the event, the moment was also special because it was handed by the film actress Jaqueline Bisset. The manager of the Cluj-Napoca National Theatre, Mihai Măniuţiu, and the artistic director, Ştefana Pop-Curşeu, received this award on behalf of the creative team and of the theatre.
This was director Bocsárdi László's first collaboration with the Cluj-Napoca National Theatre and his team consisted of the actors Sânziana Tarţa, Irina Wintze, Anca Hanu, Cristian Rigman, Radu Lărgeanu, Miron Maxim, Cătălin Herlo, Ovidiu Crişan, Matei Rotaru, Ionuţ Caras, Boros Csaba, as well as of Bartha József (set design), Kiss Zsuzsanna (costumes), Benedek Zsolt (dramaturgy), Boros Csaba (music and co-repetition), Cristian Pascariu (video), Adela Bihari (co-repetition assistant), Adrian Strâmtu (step instructor), Eugenia Sarvari (assistant director), Jenel Moldovan (lighting design).
The 24th edition of the UNITER Awards Gala took place on 9 May 2016 at the "Regina Maria" Theatre in Oradea. For this award, the production OUR CLASS was nominated alongside the productions The Sunset Limited by Cormac McCarthy, directed by Andrei and Andreea Grosu, UnTeatru Theatre, Bucharest,and The Ease by Attila Bartis, director Radu Afrim, Târgu-Mureş National Theatre, "Tompa Miklós" Company. The UNITER Awards Gala annually rewards the best artists and productions of the previous year. An initial jury selects the artists and productions which will later enter the competition, and a second jury decides, on the night of the Gala, through secret vote, the winner in each category. The Gala is organized by UNITER, The Theatre Union of Romania. This year, the selection jury consisted of Claudiu Groza, Doina Papp, Cristina Rusiecki, and the final jury of Alice Georgescu, Ozana Oancea, Viorica Petrovici, Mircea Morariu, Alexa Visarion.
Cluj-Napoca National Theatre would like to thank UNITER for this award which honors the entire team and would like to congratulate all the nominees and winners of the event!
The list of winners and nominees is available here.
We invite to share our joy for this award at our next performance with OUR CLASS, on 17 May, 07.00 p.m., at the Cluj-Napoca National Theatre.
The text, structured in 14 lessons, brings to stage the painful story of former classmates, both Polish and Jewish, good colleagues and friends, who, at one point in history, without any clear reason, allow themselves to be caught in the roller-coaster of cruelty, becoming oppressors and victims. The name of the play was borrowed by the author from one of the most famous social networks in Poland, but is also a reference to Kantor's The Dead Class.
In Jedwabne, a town in central Poland, there lived, for centuries, a strong Jewish community, around 1600 inhabitants, in a peaceful symbiosis with the Polish community. They worked together and celebrated their traditions together. Soon after the Nazis entered Jedwabne, the unimaginable happened: the Polish from the town massacred all 1600 Jewish inhabitants in one day. Those who escaped from the axes, hayforks or knives, were pushed in a barn and set on fire. There were no survivors. Immediately after, their Polish neighbors took their houses and belongings. These are the historical facts, and the action of the play covers a period of approximately 68 years (1935 - 2003), covering the war, Nazism and Communism, the ghettos, the propaganda and compromise.
