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THE COMPETITION (The Casting in Kursk)

 

by Alexander Galin
with a prologue by Ionuț Caras

translated by Liudmila Szekely Anton


director: Ionuț Caras
set and costume design: Zsófia Gábor
design grafic: Cristian Luchian
prop artist: Vlad Mureșan
lighting designer: Jenel Moldovan


Cast:
Nina: Sânziana Tarța
Varvara: Irina Wintze
Katia: Diana Buluga
Liza: Diana-Ioana Licu
Tamara: Adriana Băilescu
Olga: Angelica Nicoară
Albert: Radu Dogaru
Tetzudzin Aoki: Salomeea Rusu
Boris Karnauhov: Matei Rotaru
Vasili Bok: Miron Maxim
Viktor Puhov: Radu Lărgeanu


stage manager: Vlad Negrea
lighting technicians: Mădălina Mânzat, Andrei Mitran
sound technician: Vasile Crăciun
prompter: Irina Barbir

Bitter and explosive comedy…



It is the 90s, and we find ourselves in a Russian provincial town, where the censorship and the dehumanising routine of communism were suddenly replaced by the void and the disorientation emerging from the transplantation of capitalism; in the life of ordinary people, the regime change is tantamount to an earthquake. Two girls and four women, recently out of a job, run into each other in the freezing hall of a cinema, where they are all waiting, quite frantically, to take part in the Audition: the Great Audition that is supposed to provide freedom, the valorisation of their beauty and talent, the promise of a better life, far from the squalor and the misery at home. It is a form of rebellion and emancipation for each character in her own way: the beautiful pseudo-artist Olga no longer tolerates her husband’s blatant infidelity; the intelligent intellectual Nina is running away from a marriage marred by depression and poverty, brought on by redundancy; the brutally honest Tamara can no longer stand the humiliation and the domestic violence she has been experiencing; as for the worldly Varia, she is trying to redeem her daughters, previously sold to the Russians, by selling them once again to the foreigners. However, regardless of the seriousness and the legitimacy of their pursuit of independence, the candidates’ amateurish artistic offer is comical, ridiculous, and pitiful to the Japanese spectators, who are looking for young uninhibited strippers rather than some poor disillusioned women. The hostile space of the cinema becomes, alternatively, the stage of the audition, an involuntary confessional, a fighting ring for the spouses, as well as the site of eventual reconciliation. As for the public, we can recognise the cruelty of History in their smaller, personal histories, we can laugh on a conciliatory, explosive, or bitter note because, again and again, those who believed in the possibility of change were and are taken for fools.  

 

Ștefana Pop-Curșeu



 
Premiul Apostrof Radu Stanca: Irina Wintze, pentru rolul Varvara din spectacolul Audiţia după piesa dramaturgului rus Alexander Galin, care a avut premiera în primăvara acestui an la Teatrul Naţional „Lucian Blaga“ din Cluj, în regia lui Ionuţ Caras, 2022.



 


Opening date: Sunday, April 17 2022

Next performances
Sunday, March 31 2024, at 19:00
Saturday, June 8 2024, at 19:00
Main stage
16+
2h 40 min. (cu o pauză)