INSULTED.BELARUS - READING PERFORMANCE

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15 theatres from Romania and one theatre from the Republic of Moldova join together in an unprecedented solidarity action, joining the Belarus(sia) Worldwide Reading Project, based on the play INSULTATI. BELARUS(IA) by Andrei Kureicik.

Every day, from 7 to 22 February 2021, at the initiative of Ralucă Rădulescu, the Romanian translator of the play, a reading performance will take place in one of the partner theatres, broadcast online or performed live, with an audience in the auditorium, as a sign of solidarity with the theatre movement and the citizens of Belarus, who have been protesting for six months without ceasing, for freedom and the right to hold fair and free elections.

At the Ianka Kupala National Theatre in Minsk, director Pavel Latusko, former Minister of Culture and Belarusian Ambassador to Poland and France, was dismissed for statements in support of the protesters. Most of the staff resigned in solidarity. On 26 August, just 20 days before its 100th anniversary, the Misnk National Theatre ceased to exist. The troupe has now gathered in a basement, where it continues to work, broadcasting its performances online.

In this context, the playwright Andrei Kureicik wrote a play about the reality in which he and the whole country were living, while going to protests, using Aleksandr Lukashenko and Svetlana Tihanovskaya's statements as a starting point. Insult. Belarus(ia) is a tough, dignified and humorous play, featuring, in addition to the two presidential candidates, five representative characters whose lives were tragically affected by Lukashenko's decision to suppress the peaceful Belarusian revolution through violence and torture. It is a picture of what is happening now in Belarus, but it can happen anywhere, anytime; it is a cry for help and a wake-up call, raising awareness among a wider public of a concrete situation and also of the danger of any form of dictatorship.

On 12 September 2020, a first reading performance took place in Ukraine, in Herson, which kicked off a project conceived by John Freedman, the translator of the play into English: Belarus(sia) Worldwide Reading Project, which, in the last 4 months, has been translated into 21 languages and has counted some 130 readings in over 80 theatres in 28 countries, from New York and Boston to Hong Kong, London, Edinburgh, Amsterdam, The Hague, Stokholm, Prague, Budapest, Vilnius, Tel Aviv, Tbilisi and Tashkent.

In Romania, the first performance-reading took place on October 26, 2020, at the National Theatre in Iasi, within the framework of the LECTURI³ project. Two readings followed at the National Theatre "Mihai Eminescu" in Chisinau and the National Theatre "Satiricus I.L.Caragiale" in Chisinau.

On 7 February 2021, declared by Svetlana Tihanovskaya as the "International Day of Solidarity with Belarus", the largest series of reading performances so far of the Belarus(sia) Worldwide Reading Project began in Romania as a sign of solidarity with the theatre people and citizens of Belarus.

Cast

• The Old Man: Nicodim Ungureanu
• The young man: Theodor Șoptelea
• The novice: Dana Dumitrescu
• Dead man: Ștefan Mihai
• The optimist one: Cristiana Luca
• The moral one: Maria Lupu
• The predator: Andu Axente