HEKTOMERON Day

About the show

Marin Sorescu National Theatre invites you to participate in what is probably the longest and most complex theatrical performance in the world, Hektomeron Day/Hektomeron Day. It starts on the evening of Monday, 21 June 2021, and will be presented for 25 hours on the stage of the theatre's "Amza Pellea" hall, in an artistic marathon that aims to be an x-ray of the contemporary world. A manifesto as an artistic credo - the world is the sum of our identities and actions.

A project born out of a desire to break out of the walls erected by the virus that has condemned people around the world to forced confinement. An original idea by Vlad Drăgulescu, the artistic director of the Craiova theatre.

More than 400 artists from 100 countries will be involved in the production of this show and the Hektomeron platform (www.hektomeron.ro). For this record-breaking performance, our theatre's actors, together with 100 directors, created the 100 episodes of the event in the first part of the project (15 January-24 April 2021). Over 100 days, they have managed to attract the attention of hundreds of thousands of people in over 160 countries.

Born in the current pandemic context, the Hektomeron project is based on Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron, written more than 650 years ago, in a period similar to our own. Thus, we want our initiative to be a message of solidarity and unity, a milestone marking the contribution of these artists to the building of this moment in universal theatrical history.

The event is supported by the Ministry of Culture, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and enjoys the patronage of the International Theater Institute/UNESCO.

Chronicles:

From moments of "dance theatre" to the suggestion of "shadow theatre", from the play of the actor with his own image filmed in the role of several characters or the refinement of the creation of characters through voice and through gestural and mimic nuances generously offered by not a few of the actors of the company, from the emphasis on the strength of the word, on the value of silences or on visual expressiveness, the actors from Craiova in artistic partnership with stage directors from all over the world have created a true contemporary theatrical "repertoire". We have noticed in an exemplary way not only the availability, the eagerness to work of the thirty-one performers involved in the project and in multiple demand, but also their remarkable skills demonstrated in this queen of theatre which is the recital, the performance individually and fully assumed to create an ideological universe and to nuance a stylistic valence, on a huge diapason from comic to grotesque, from dramatic to tragic. Towards the fulfilment of this macro-project, they all compose the image of a well-rounded troupe, in which the professional background so rich in their case has a beneficial say, a troupe that has worked with all seriousness and responsible involvement.

Mariana Ciolan – leviathan.ro

The virtues that the theatre celebrates today through "Hektomeron" are love, faith and hope. For me, as an audience member, it is extraordinary to watch a process by directors who have never met the actors directly, but who are willing to invest everything they have, their talent, their vision, their aspirations in something that is so far away, yet so close to them. I'd love for you to be able to watch episodes of "Hektomeron". Maybe not all of them, maybe not all at once, but at least the ones that impress you, that resonate with your sensibility, because those will surely reverberate at some point in your thoughts, in your conscience, but also in your heart. The message of Hektomeron is something that transcends the vast, impressive network of talent from 100 different countries. The message is linked to something fundamental to the art of theatre: dialogue and communion through dialogue. We all wonder, perhaps, what is the best definition of theatre in such times, in times so strange that some believe it no longer ranks among society's priorities. Now, we must always remind everyone and ourselves that theatre is not a consumer good, but an absolute need of the human being. Why? Because it brings us together. So, through Boccaccio, through this wonderful troupe of Romanian actors, through the visions of a hundred artists from as many countries, we can all be together, we can dream together. I invite you to celebrate, together with the artists of the unique project called "Hektomeron", communion through theatre!

Octavian Saiu-Observatorul Cultural

George Banu

Octavian Saiu