Dispatch from the Craiova International Shakespeare Festival
Review By Amanda L. Andrei
Come to Craiova at the start of the summer, and you’ll find this southwestern city in Romania bursting with drama. Since 1994, this cozy Belle Époque city in Romania has hosted the International Shakespeare Festival, filling the stages, streets, and sprawling Romanescu Park with performances and art inspired by the Bard.
Held from May 21-31, 2026, this fifteenth edition of the festival revolved around the theme “Will Matters,” punning on the playwright’s name and concepts of agency and self-determination. How do you make your will matter in a world filled with tragedy? Or how does your will change once you turn the street corner and find a hidden treasure trove?
Indeed, tragedy graced the evening productions. Titus Andronicus: Reborn, presented by Japanese company Kakushinhan and directed by Kyunosuke Kimura, opened the festival, transforming the gory revenge play into a spiritual Noh performance replete with gorgeous masks and robes (design by Hisato Iwasaki and Maya, respectively).
Romanian director Silviu Purcărete’s King Lear stripped the aging monarch (Claudiu Bleonț) from a decorated regality to gritty madness, only to subvert the titular character’s famous cry at the end (“Never, never, never, never, never!”) with muteness. In this Romanian interpretation of the political tragedy, the aching howl of the doomed king and his family pierced so deeply, it saturates the final atmosphere with silence.
If so many dead bodies and failed choices are too heavy to stomach, the streets and smaller performance venues offer an enchanting break and good humor. Turn the corner and you might run into a street parade with jewel-toned performers on stilts and makeup, or intimate art installations.
A larger installation in Mihai Viteazu Square showcases youth creations inspired by A Midsummer Night’s Dream: over 1,000 middle and high school students from Dolj County developed a labyrinth of intricate, candy-colored scenes from the fantasy-comedy. A micro black-box theater with a filmed student performance inside adds a lovely private moment for passersby.
Choreographer Elena Zamfirescu directed 9+ Suitcases, One Tempest, an experimental movement and dance piece in the Museum of Art’s Constantin Brâncuși Centre. Young performers shifted and opened vintage suitcases, stacked glasses, and twisted their bodies in the natural light of the Centre. The images of the sculptor added historical depth to their abstract performances. (Brâncuși is from the region of Craiova and famously emphasized simplicity and essence in his artwork.) Estonian Tricktrek theatre staged a wordless puppet performance through an elaborate wooden castle on wheels in the Promenada Mall in Craiova, delighting audiences of all ages with its craftsmanship.
Film lovers also enjoyed free screenings of classic Shakespeare films and adaptations: Laurence Olivier’s Hamlet, Orson Welles’ Chimes at Midnight, Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet, Jean-Luc Godard’s King Lear, Gus Van Sant’s My Own Private Idaho. Other films screened included Mamoru Hosada’s animated Scarlet, loosely based on Hamlet, and the short Romanian documentary Yuri Butusov and Other Tales about the famed Russian director and his avant-garde methods. The stylish Biergarten Craiova also showcased student short films in their “UNAT-Cinema” evening program, an initiative from the Universitatea Națională de Artă Teatrală și Cinematografică “I.L. Caragiale” in Bucharest.
Constructed in 2024 for the thirtieth anniversary, the Shakespeare Village was a unique addition to the festival. Small wooden sets with Elizabethan era trades and activities (such as weaving, fencing, and leathermaking) encircled a grassy area for storytelling, dance tutorials, and fencing demonstrations. Gift stalls and food trucks lined the perimeter. A concert stage and shaded lounge area provided beanbags and low wooden tables to enjoy a beer or cocktail in between shows and events. At night, rock concerts and light shows filled the Village as audience members jammed, danced, and made merry.
From stage to square, Craiova’s international festival shows that Shakespeare is more than a historical playwright, but a reason to gather and party.
Amanda L. Andrei is a playwright, literary translator, theater critic, and community archivist, named as one of three Rising Leaders of Color by the Theatre Communications Group (TCG) for their 2023 cohort of theater journalists. She writes epic, irreverent plays that center the concealed, wounded places of history and societies from the perspectives of diasporic Filipina women, and she co-translates from Romanian to English with her father, Codin Andrei.
She is the founder of The Palangga Archives and has presented her work on the archives at the Filipinx Studies Conference at UC Davis’ Bulosan Center for Filipino Studies. She has an MA from Georgetown University and an MFA from the University of Southern California.
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