by Alexandra Badea

Company: Radu Stanca National Theatre

“On the Other Side of the World” is a theatrical road trip, an initiatic performance at the end of which the characters are empowered to act and change something both on the inside and on the outside. Having lost her boyfriend in the Collective fire, Iris, while in Vienna, gets carried away by her meeting with an enigmatic girl, Zoé, and goes on a camper van journey through Europe. This experience brings her meetings with special people who build new utopias when the state refuses to protect the most vulnerable.

The journey takes Iris through a transformative process, as she leaves from an autonomous space in Austria, where she discovers the political battles of environmental activists and new ideological concepts that give rise to heated debates, going to France, where she spends some time in a refugee camp and falls in love again, and later to Ireland where, in a shelter for vulnerable women, she helps a Romanian worker return to her home country. Facing eccentric characters and listening to their extraordinary life stories, she finally finds an answer to the questions floating in her head and refinds the courage to give meaning to her actions.

“On the Other Side of the World” is a multimedia introspective performance in which, during a road trip around Europe, through their meetings with characters based on real people and stories rarely told in Romania, I hope spectators will once again find the momentum that we have all somehow lost during the pandemic, the momentum to leave passivity behind and do the essential, both for ourselves and for others.’ – Alexandra Badea

The Artist

Alexandra Badea, is a writer, theatre director and filmmaker. Although Romanian born, she has been living and working in France since 2003 and, consequently, writes in French and Romanian. She’s had twenty plays and two novel published with Arche Editeur Publisher and translated into several European languages. Her plays have been produced in National Theatres in France and across Europe and a few have even been adapted for the radio. She’s had a number of international collaborations. As a director she’s staged a number of performances in theatres in both France and Romania and directed two short films. Alexandra has had several residencies in Japan, Congo, Russia, Germany, Canada, Unites States and been awarded several grants for writing by the Theatre National Center, the Book National Center, the Ministry of Culture or the Region Ile de France. Her work is focused on political and social topics, based on actual issues and also on the consequences of Europe’s recent past (colonization and post-colonization, dictatorships, massacres). From 2017 she is associated artist at the National Theatre La Colline from Paris and her last performance “Points of no return” was created last year at the International festival of Avignon.

Credits

Set design: Cosmin Florea
Original music: Claudiu Urse
Cast: Oana Brânzan/Gabriela Pîrlițeanu, Ioana Cosma, Ali Deac, Horia Fedorca, Alexandru Malaicu, Fabiola Petri, Cristina Ragos, Arina Ioana Trif, Cendana Trifan, Ștefan Tunsoiu, Iustinian Turcu, Marius Turdeanu
Technical direction: Nicușor Văcariu
Sound: Costin Todirenchi
Lights: Dorin Părău, Ioan Macrea
Video: Claudiu Mihăilescu
Props: Ana Dumitru
Wardrobe: Adriana Moga
Director’s assistant and prompter: Corina Predescu
Project manager: Ioana Nistorescu

On the other side of the world is a large scall production of the Be SpectACTive! project.