Gertrude

Radu F. Alexandru

“I. L. Caragiale” National Theatre of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania

Director: Silviu Purcărete

Romanian with Hungarian and English subtitles

1 hours 25 minutes.

The rewriting of the story of the enigmatic Danish prince, Hamlet, from the perspective of the playwright Radu F. Alexandru, shatters many of the uncertainties of the Great Will's play, giving the famous characters unsuspected meanings and valences. In Gertrude, the Queen-Mother, the bearer of the ultimate blame, becomes the diabolical mind behind a scenario about adultery, lies, murder and power. Who is the King's murderer? Does s/he deserve punishment or forgiveness? Did the father kill the father? - are questions that seek answers in an action where suspicious motives intertwine with the suspenseful moments of a thriller. The author does not shy away from Shakespearean questioning, showing us the young Hamlet - with all his anguish - tirelessly searching for the truth.

Gertrude – Claudiu Bleonț

Hamlet – Marius Manole

Claudius – Mircea Rusu

Horatio – Alexandru Potocean

The Ghost – Marius Bodochi

Polonius – Paul Chiribuță

Ofelia – Lari Giorgescu

Stage designer: Dragoș Buhagiar
Costume designer: Dragoș Buhagiar
Choreographer: Florin Fieroiu
Composer: Vasile Șirli
Dramaturge: Radu F. Alexandru
Lighting design: Dragoș Buhagiar
Lighting design assistents: Daniel Mateescu, Ștefan Dumitra
Sound: Liviu Stoica, Bogdan Golumbeanu

Awards and prizes of the performance

The performance was presented during the tour of the National Theater from Bucharest to Chisinau on the occasion of the 9th edition of the Romanian National Theaters' Meeting, 2024

Selection of reviews

- "Silviu Purcarete's Gertrude is an accomplished visual-cinematographic poem. With great acting roles. A rapid and intense dissection, a film of essential frames, those that name the insidiousness of sin and the darkness of Power. A lesson in the anatomy of theatre. Of life. A Japanese saga around guilt. A story of exceptional artistry about the absolute purity of theatre as mystery and performance." Marina Constantinescu – Romania Literară

- Gertrude" – the staging at the National Theatre in Bucharest of the world-renowned director Silviu Purcarete's production based on the text of the greatest contemporary Romanian playwright of the theatre of ideas, Radu F. Alexandru - is the queen of the 2023-2024 season in Romania." Horia Ghibuțiu – Journalist’s Blog

- A magnificent all-male cast, with cadaverous faces, almost deformed, despairing, decomposing, on which, because of sweat, the white greyness spreads in a (more obscure) light, perform, in a perfect symbiosis, a "sonata of ghosts" at the border between reality and dream, between day and night". Dana Pocea, Contemporanul Magazine

- An all-male cast, like in Shakespeare's time. Is this a proposal, a clever play, an arch over time between the great Will's Hamlet and the hypertext, as Genette would have said, of Radu F. Alexander? Possibly. But I'm sure the performance Gertrude is very close to perfection. It reminded me of Phaedra, the anthologized performance directed by the same Purcarete at the National Theatre from Craiova". Mircea Morariu, Contributors / HotNews

Main Stage

23 May 2025, 19:00

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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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