In Cluj-Napoca Stories Refuse to Fade

Handan Salta*

The Lucian Blaga National Theatre Festival in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. Oct 9 to 12, 2025.

I attended the Cluj theatre festival for the first time, and what struck me wasn’t only the plays—many of which reflected the Romanian collective subconscious and its layered history—but the sheer ability of a single theatre to host such a rich, ambitious event, bringing together eminent theatre-makers, academics and critics. Although every performance we saw was a production of the National Theatre itself, the festival’s international character emerged from the diversity and presence of its invited guests. Now in its fourteenth edition, the festival explored the theme of destiny. Running alongside the performances was a conference devoted to artificial intelligence—a topic currently occupying the public imagination everywhere, hovering between fear, excitement, anxiety and hope. The festival team had clearly prepared everything with remarkable attention to detail, and reading theatre and humanity through the twin lenses of destiny and AI created an unexpectedly compelling framework.

Except for one production, every performance took place in the Cluj National Theatre, a beautiful building whose velvet seats, proscenium stage, red carpets and patterned tiles all recall the early twentieth century—and which, sadly, is about to undergo renovation. In this setting, older texts stepped onto the stage once again to rewrite their destinies before today’s audiences, while seeking new ways to speak to younger generations. Still, as in many places, the audience leaned toward middle-aged and older theatre-goers.

As a public theatre, the institution clearly aimed to appeal to wide-ranging tastes. It is impossible to discuss all the productions here, so I’ve chosen a few, linking them to the notion of destiny along the way.

Who is streaming in his mind? Cosmin Stanila (left) and Cecilia Lucanu-Donat in *Adventures in Immediate Reality*. Photo: Nicu Cherciu

Adventures in Immediate Reality, directed by Tudor Lucanu, opened with a calm, still atmosphere—one soon disrupted by the images bubbling up from the poet’s mind. “When I stare for some time at a fixed point on the wall,” the artist says, “it sometimes happens that I no longer know who I am, or where I am…” This state of mind hardly feels foreign to the citizens of our century. What followed was an associative journey through fragments of existence, a string of images that left the audience breathless, constantly running after meaning. Having not read the text in advance, I quickly gave up trying to match the surtitles with what unfolded onstage. Instead, I grabbed on to the “rope” the performance offered me—letting the images wash over me and constructing my own meanings. Whether the director intended this or not, I can’t say—but it worked. I read the play’s relationship to destiny through the playwright’s act of defiance: producing this work despite having been diagnosed with a terminal illness.

Molière is watching us. Ionut Caras and Ramona Dumitrean in *Mr Harpagon’s Brave New World*. Photo: Nicu Cherciu

What would happen if we brought Molière’s Harpagon into the year 2025? Mr Harpagon’s Brave New World, directed by Roberto Bacci, tackled exactly this, targeting our most sensitive nerves. The play seemed designed to condemn happiness built upon the suffering of others, and it did so effectively. The petty cruelties Harpagon inflicted on his own family in Molière’s time would hardly raise an eyebrow in today’s world of unrestrained capitalism—where priorities have mutated and wealth’s consequences are outsourced to unseen others. The questions the play posed were hardly new (“Having money and privilege makes life significantly easier”) but embedding those questions in interactions with the audience—actors moving through the seats, lights catching us off-guard—made the truth feel uncomfortably close. The production suggested that as humanity has “progressed,” the destiny imposed by the powerful upon the powerless has grown harsher, and that altering this destiny may require imagination as bold as the cruelty it confronts.

Victory? Really? Salomeea Rusu, Sebastian Topan and Andrei Marcuta in *Nine Disgraces and Other Scandalous Scenes from Romania’s Recent* Past. Photo: Nicu Cherciu

For someone writing from a country where censorship often turns inward and becomes self-censorship, it was exhilarating to witness acts of state violence brought to the stage of a publicly funded theatre in Nine Disgraces and Other Scandalous Scenes from Romania’s Recent Past, directed by Ionut Caras and the team. Its relationship with destiny could be read in two directions: the suffering of communities with no choice but to endure the hand they were dealt, and the play’s commitment to critical thought as a tool to finally confront these histories.

Colder than the grave. Elena Ivanca in *20 Years in Siberia*. Photo: Nicu Cherciu

20 Years in Siberia, directed by Sorin Misiriantu, revisited another painful chapter of Romanian history. Based on the diaries of a woman from Northern Bukovina—deported with her three sons after the Soviet occupation in 1940—the play relied almost entirely on the power of words. For an hour, Anita (Elena Ivanca) guided us through survival inside the inferno of Stalin’s regime. Her unwavering trust in God, which might feel frustrating from today’s perspective, ultimately became an integral part of her resilience. Yet, as much as the production underscored the necessity of clinging to belief, I found myself wishing it had added another layer to this testimony.

Naturally, one would not expect cheerful notes in the diaries of a woman who spent twenty years starving and freezing in Siberia; still, in bringing this true story to the present, the director might not have needed to cling so tightly to the rope of strict factuality. I couldn’t help imagining how the piece might have deepened had it woven in glimpses of other prisoners, Anita’s inner visions or dreams, or even the contradictions of the soldier embodying Stalin’s regime—elements that could have given the production a more layered texture.

Anca Hanu, Radu Dogaru, Sânziana Tarța, Mihai Nițu and Diana Licu in *Gilgamesh*. Photo: Nicu Cherciu

One of the oldest stories of defying destiny—Gilgamesh—also appeared in the festival, staged by Turkish director Çağlar Yiğitoğulları (whose work I know well from Turkey). Encountering his production here was a joyful surprise, especially since he has been living abroad for more than a decade. As the final part of a trilogy created during his collaboration with the Cluj National Theatre (after Quest/Shamanic Songs and Bhagavad Gita), this version of Gilgamesh sought to bridge ancient beliefs and expectations with the contemporary world’s ongoing preoccupation with fate—a timeless quest that continues to shape human experience. The audience, positioned almost in a superior role to Gilgamesh—aware of what awaits him and his companion Enkidu—was subtly encouraged to reconsider the value of life and the intensity of our passions within it. While the production reminded us of human helplessness in the face of death, its music created an ecstatic atmosphere that swept the audience along with the performers.

From here on, I know I’ll be watching closely whatever future festivals the Cluj National Theatre brings to life. After the performances, I found myself surrounded by dozens of theatre-makers on the upper floor of the building—yet curiously missing the actors of the very institution hosting the festival. On the final evening (which, fittingly, seems to be the moment when all the tension finally lifts), I managed to catch a group of younger artists, and a long, winding conversation carried us late into the night. We spoke about the state of the world and the toxic masculinities partly responsible for its shape; about the cultural deprivation of rural regions; about arts policy, responsibility and hope. It felt like the perfect closing note to a festival.

*Handan Salta is a theatre scholar, translator and educator with a PhD in Theatre Criticism and Dramaturgy from Istanbul University, Turkey. Her academic and professional work focuses on feminist theatre, contemporary dramaturgy and Theatre in Education. She has taught extensively at universities including Maltepe, Marmara and Haliç, and has led workshops in creative drama and language education. A prolific translator of contemporary and classical plays, Salta also contributes theatre criticism to international platforms. She is a co-founder of TheatreIST and an active member of IATC, Assitej and Çev-Bir.

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