This year, the Interferences International Theatre Festival, organised by the Hungarian Theatre of Cluj, will take place for the ninth time, focusing on the 35 years that have passed since the change of regime. The aim of the festival is to encourage audiences to engage in shared ideas and dialogue through the language of theatre, reflecting on the cultural and social changes of the past several decades. During the first days of the festival, audiences will be able to attend two exhibition openings, as well as domestic and international performances.

The first feature of the festival will be a performance of Someone Is Going to Come, directed by Chris Simion-Mercurian, on Sunday November 3, at 6 pm. The play by Nobel Prize-winning playwright Jon Fosse features Ofelia Popii and Ciprian Scurtea. The ARCUB Bucharest production will be performed also from 9 pm on the same evening in the Studio.

“The play tells the story of a couple finding themselves unable to reconnect. He and She – an ordinary couple, sharing dreams, ideals, and insecurities – walk into an isolated house on the seashore, with the purpose of rediscovering themselves. What awaits them is a terrifying loneliness and the daunting feeling that She is haunted by something. Perhaps even the certainty that Someone will come. The play looks for its essence through mystery and suspense. A theatre of silence, a story about (no) communication.” – reads the play’s synopsis.

The first main stage performance will take place on Sunday November 3, at 7:30 pm in the theatre's main stage, where audiences will be able to see The Silent Escape, directed and performed by Oana Pellea, based on Lena Constante's novel. The production is a guest performance by the I. L. Caragiale National Theatre of Bucharest.

Oana Pellea has won numerous awards throughout her theatre career, including the 2009 Romanian Comedy Festival Grand Prize for Best Performance for her production of Matei Vișniec's Pockets Full of Bread, which she directed herself and starred alongside Sandu Mihai Gruia. In 2000, she won the Romanian Cultural Foundation's International Career Award and the Romanian Theatre Association's (UNITER) Best Actress Award for her performance as Kate in Mihai Măniuțiu's Shakespearean staging of The Taming of the Shrew. In 1996, the International Association of Theatre Critics awarded her the Best Actress Award for her portrayal of Masha in Chekhov's Three Sisters, Julius in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar and Marie in Georg Büchner's Woyzeck. In 1994 she won the UNITER Best Actress Award for her performance in Mephisto, directed by Alexandru Darie.

On the first day of the festival, audiences will be able to attend two exhibition openings in the upstairs foyer of the theatre. The (R)evolution of Paintings, the first multimedia project in Romania, which combines Romanian art and history of the recent past in a unique way, will open at 6:30 pm. It will star eleven well-known actors from the National Theatre of Bucharest, who will tell the story of the paintings that were damaged during the 1989 revolution in Romania and subsequently restored. The video footage was shot by National Theatre of Bucharest photographer Florin Ghioca.

Also in the upstairs foyer of the theatre is the National Museum and Institute of Theatre History's exhibition, Noble Traces. The Threatre on Kogălniceanu Street in Cluj. "In this exhibition, we trace the history, difficult and glorious eras of the Kogălniceanu Street Theatre through surviving photographs, playbills, sketches, manuscripts, memorabilia and recollections." - reads the exhibition guide. Curator: Beáta Huber; Visuals and design: György Mihalkov.

The (R)evolution of Paintings, and Noble Traces. The Threatre on Kogălniceanu Street in Cluj exhibitions are on display for the entire duration of the festival.

On the second day of the festival, Monday November 4, at 5 pm and 9 pm respectively, the Bulgarian Sfumato Theatre Laboratory will present The Last Tape. Not I in the Studio. The production was staged by Ivan Dobchev.

“I want to dedicate this encroachment of mine on Beckett to the memory of two of my dear friends - Krikor Azarian and Naum Shopov, who in the sunset of the so-called "mature socialist realism" had dared to stage "The Last Tape". An unforgettable show! I have no words to describe the effect it had on all our theatrical thinking at the time. I very much wish that our play would produce this effect on our present state of theatre.” – stated Ivan Dobchev, the play’s director.

On Tuesday, 5 November, at 7 pm, Attila Vidnyánszky Jr.'s latest Cluj staging, Janovics, will be performed in the Studio. The play is written by Miklós Vecsei H. and Nikolett Németh.

“The team puts on a performance that is memorable not only for its themes but also for its originality as a whole, its excellent acting, striking visuals, choreography and music. It is worth recalling one of the many beautiful moments, when Uncle Méry, the theatre's fireman (played by József Bíró, an excellent actor), shows the audience a photograph, probably taken in 1920, of the members of the Hungarian company in Cluj looking into the camera with Janovics: on the edge of the picture is a Romanian text: 'Opera din Cluj, 1919’” – writes Judit Kiss about the production.

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The festival is co-organised by the Corvineum Foundation, with the support of the Ministry of Culture, the Government of Hungary and the Bethlen Gábor Fund, as well as the Cluj-Napoca Mayoral Office and City Council.

The event is supported by the Union of European Theatres, Energobit, Communitas Foundation, UNITER and Cluj County Council. Transportation partner: RMB Inter Auto.

The detailed programme of the performances can be found on the website of the Hungarian Theatre of Cluj, huntheater.ro.

All performances are available with Hungarian, Romanian and English surtitles!

Tickets for the performances included in the festival programme can be purchased online at huntheater.biletmaster.ro and at the theatre's box office. Tickets for the production "A Stroll in the Air" can be purchased at bilete.ro or at the box office of the National Theatre of Cluj-Napoca.

During the period of November 3-17, the theatre's box office will be open from 10 am to 10 pm daily.

The theatre reserves the right to make changes to the programme!