Ion Caramitru, one of the greatest and most versatile actors of his generation to grace the stage in Romania, will be commemorated in Dublin, Ireland, in a special photography exhibition.
Immediately after Romania’s anti-communist revolution in which the actor played a prominent role off-stage, he headed a tour of Hamlet to London’s National Theatre and Dublin in 1990.
He won critical acclaim in both countries for his interpretation of Hamlet, which was considered to be one of the best in recent times, anywhere.
Fittingly, the upcoming show called „Beyond the Stage,” will open on Sept. 5 in Dublin, two years after he died at the age of 79.
It gives the public the opportunity to see Caramitru with personalities such as King Charles III, Moldovan President Maia Sandu, Romanian President Klaus Iohannis, French actress Juliette Binoche and Romanian tennis star Simona Halep.
Besides being an actor, Caramitru was a theater director, a former culture minister, director of the UNITER theater union and a well-known face of the bloody 1989 revolution.
As gunfire erupted in Bucharest, the actor rode to the television station on a tank and appeared with a group of revolutionaries on the newly-liberated public television.
He announced to the nation that dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife Elena had fled after almost 24 years of rule.
The Christmas revolution gave him an audience outside Romania and beyond the world of the theater. In 1995, he was awarded an OBE by Queen Elizabeth II.
Caramitru was director of the National Theatre of Bucharest (TNB) from 2005 until his death and oversaw a massive 51 million euros refurbishment inspired by Le Corbusier’s Chapel on the hills of Ronchamp.
„Beyond the Stage” features photos from the last eight years of Caramitru’s life, taken by Florin Ghioca, the TNB’s staff photographer.
There are images from tours, behind the scenes, the actor’s dressing room at TNB, and meeting various public figures.
„Ion Caramitru was a private man, whom I rarely managed to photograph offstage when he wasn’t in a role. But there were times when I dared to sneak behind the scenes of his theatrical life and capture some never-before-seen images,” Ghioca said.
The exhibition was first mounted a year ago at the National Theatre in Bucharest in the foyer of the hall that bears his name.
Ghioca is the official photographer of the National Theatre in Bucharest and founding president of the International Association of Theatre Photographers (IATP).
Ion Caramitru, Romanian actor, theater director and prominent face of anti-communist revolution dies
