FAT TRAGICOMEDY AROUND SIBIU
INTERNATIONAL THEATRE FESTIVAL 2019

Text and photos Andrei Dorian Gheorghe
Design Florin Alexandru Stancu

In 2019-06-07,
getting closer to the former Capital City of the Transylvanian Saxons
(brought here as “royal guests” by the Magyar kings
since the 12th century), Hermannstadt-Sibiu,
I felt, in spite of the fog, an immense joy.

Yes, I programmed to see with my own eyes,
for the first time,
live sequences of the Sibiu International Theatre Festival,
an annual event considered one of the largest of this kind in the world
(founded in 1993,
with participants from tens of countries during ten days,
and appreciated at the same level with
the similar festivals of Edinburgh and Avignon).

Obviously, I entered the citadel
and I symbolically stopped in front of the entrance of the tower
that hosted the first theatre show in Transylvania in 1788,
many people naming it the Thick Tower
and others calling it the Fat Tower
(of course, I prefer the second variant).

But my ritual was not successful,
a terrible rain blocking me for a while
and annuling the representations in the Large Square,
where the local mayoralty used to install a few stages for parallel shows.

Since the Sibiu citadel rejected me,
I walked a little out of it, near its walls, among the puddles,
returning to the Fat Tower,
this time visible from another position.

Suddenly I had the impression
I saw fat clouds over it

From then on,
all transformed into a celestial fat theatre show.

Thus, returning to Bucharest,
I could swear I saw other clouds, over the Carpathian Mountains,
saying:

“Perhaps you are a fat man,
but we are even fatter…”