On Friday, 27 May, the independent theatre company Váróterem Projekt will have the premiere of their new show, entitled Alcestis, based on Euripides’ drama. At first glance this choice may seem unusual, as Váróterem Projekt rarely uses classical texts, but the team’s artists have long had a desire to work on a similar project. In terms of the method, however, we did not deviate so much from our previous works: the text was treated freely, as a raw material, and the rehearsal process was guided by joint research and active analysis rather than by a well-defined concept. The text contains traces of Euripides: based on Ted Hughes’ adaptation  and Anne Carson’s translation, the poet Benjámin Horváth Előd from Cluj-Napoca created his own version for the company, which was edited into its final form during rehearsals by director Andrej Visky and dramaturg Johanna Bertóti.

Each year, the Romanian National Cultural Fund (AFCN) awards special prizes to partners who have successfully implemented projects with AFCN support in the previous year. The award jury is made up of representatives of past winners, and the beneficiaries compete in 10 different categories. It was already a great honour to be shortlisted this year, but as revealed at the awards gala in Bucharest on 16 May 2022, our company won the Award for Reaching Young Audiences with Limited Cultural Access with the second edition of our Four Wheels tour series.

The outbreak of the coronavirus epidemic, the cease of the ZUG cultural space we founded, and the thorough transformation of the cast since our last premiere, have eliminated our repertoire over the years. We do not play our old performances because: a) the epidemic has interrupted our activities for a long time; b) ZUG ceased to exist and our company moved to the ZIZ studio, which is not suitable for accommodating our old performances due to its size; c) our last “big hall show” was Romania 100 at the end of January 2019, a tight three years ago, and since then two of our employed actresses have moved on. (In the lines above, I am thinking specifically of the ‘big hall performances’, which are characterized by the following: a public event in the studio, mainly for an adult, advertising-based, voluntary audience, so our shows for children and youth played on tours and outings are not included. We were able to present and play more of these despite the difficulties mentioned above.)