AS YOU LIKE IT

National Theatre, Budapest, Hungary

Director: Silviu Purcărete

2 hours 25 minutes with 1 breaks.

A phrase in a play that constituted a cornerstone in the lifework of Shakespeare, born 450 years ago, has become one of the most famous phrases in world literature, “All the world’s a stage…”, from his comedy “As You Like It”. In the words of world-famous Romanian director Silviu Purcărete, “This work is like a castle with numerous entrances, and you cannot know which leads where without entering all of them.” By interweaving the strands of the narrative, Shakespeare plays brilliantly with gender, guises, romantic desire and disappointment. In a concept that alludes to Elizabethan-era performance style, female roles are played by male actors with only one exception. In a strange directorial twist, an actress portrays the philosophical Jaques. The forest of Ardennes in the piece is where laws are overwritten. The forest in this production is primarily the world of illusion, games and theatre. We as viewers get an captivating glimpse into this “wilderness of theatrical illusion”.

Main Stage

Silviu Purcărete

Silviu Purcărete was born in Bucharest, in 1950. He graduated from the Institute of Theatre and Cinematography of Bucharest. He worked at Piatra Neamţ, Constanţa, Bucharest, and since 1988, at the National Theatre of Craiova. In 2007, he directed J.W. Goethe's Faust at the Radu Stanca National Theatre of Sibiu, a performance that was remarkably successful at the 2009 edition of the Edinburgh Festival.He has worked in theaters located in England, Austria, France,Norway, Portugal, Hungary, as well as at the Bonn, Cardiff, Vienna,Essen Opera Houses. In 1996, he became the director of the LimogesNational Dramatic Center, where he produced several performancesand where he created a school for young actors. He was named Commander in the Order of the Star of Romania, and was awarded the title of Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres, in France. He won the Hamada Foundation's Critics' Award and the Award for Artistic Excellence at the Edinburgh International Festival (1991), the Best Foreign Performance Award at the Montreal Festival of the Americas(1993), the Peter Brook Golden Globe Award for Best theatre direction(1995), the Critics' Award at the Dublin Theatre Festival (1996), the Special Prize of the Jury at the International Shakespeare Festival in Gdansk (2006), the UNITER Award for Best Direction (1993 and 2005), and the UNITER Award for Excellence (1997 and 2010 – alongside the team with whom he collaborated for Faust at the Radu Stanca National Theatre of Sibiu).

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