Rumanian Theater

(full name, Lucia Sturdza-Bulandra Rumanian Theater), one of Rumania’s leading drama theaters, founded in 1947 through the efforts of L. Sturdza-Bulandra. Productions are staged at the Bucharest Municipal Theater, built in 1929.

The Rumanian Theater’s first production was Sebastian’s The Island. Since then its repertoire has included such contemporary Rumanian plays as Demetrius’ Doubt (1949), Lovinescu’s The Inn at the Crossroads (1957), Baranga’s Mitică the Blissful (1965), and Popovici’s Power and Truth (1973). It has staged outstanding productions of such national classics as Hasdeu’s Răzvan and Vidra (1955), Sebastian’s Vacation Play (1964), and Caragiale’s During the Carnival (1966) and The Lost Letter (1973). Among the Russian classics in its repertoire are Ostrovsky’s The Forest (1953), Gorky’s The Last Ones (1950), Vassa Zheleznova (1951), and The Lower Depths (1975), and Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard (1967). It has also produced such Soviet plays as Trenev’s Liubov’ Iarovaia (1952), Pogodin’s Man With a Gun (1958), and Roshchin’s Valentin and Valentina (1972). The theater is noted for its performances of plays by Shakespeare, Schiller, Lope de Vega, B. Shaw, B. Brecht, Tennessee Williams, M. Frisch, and F. Dürrenmatt.

From 1962 to 1972 the theater was headed by the director L. Ciulei, under whom the company achieved some of its most notable successes. The theater’s leading actors and actresses are C. Bertola, F. Etterle, B. Fredanov, O. Cotescu, R. Tăpălagă, V. Rebengiuc, I. Petrescu, V. Ogăşanu, T. Caragiu, G. Patrichi, I. Caramitru, and D. Nuţu. In 1961 the theater was named in honor of Lucia Sturdza-Bulandra. The theater toured the USSR in 1967.