The After-Pandemic International Meetings in Cluj. “Festival and performance review of the 11ᵗʰ edition of the International Meetings in Cluj”, at the The National Theatre in Cluj (September 28ᵗʰ - October 2ⁿᵈ 2022)

Abstract

You would think that the 2022 Cluj-Napoca theatre festival, taking place in the flesh after a two-year hiatus provoked by the pandemic, would be a celebratory event, but theatre like so much in our high-strung early-twenty-first century life has dropped down the rabbit hole of the new crisis: an unjust and barbaric war waged on Ukraine. Not only are Romanians geographically neighbouring Ukraine but also, as local people in Cluj have told me, they identify strongly with the Ukrainian determination to remain independent and free, having themselves fought within living memory to regain independence from tyranny. Therefore, with the single-minded focus that has characterized Romanian festivals at least since Michael Billington reported (in The Guardian) on the Bucharest Theatre Festival in 2003, much of this week’s program is devoted to producing, reading, or talking about theatre in the context of contemporary historical liminalities that affects identity. The theme of this 2022 festival is, indeed, “Identities.”