Silviu Purcărete is one of the most significant theater directors from Eastern Europe with worldwide recognition. His visually captivating and dreamlike production The Ploughman and Death was one of the most awarded performances in Romania in 2021, winning also the National Award for Best Performance. The production is based on the late medieval German prose work — The Ploughman and Death by Johannes von Tepl, written around 1401. The original text unfolds as a vivid dialogue between the Ploughman, whose wife Margareta has recently passed away, and Death. Silviu Purcărete transforms it into an intense inner monologue. The director draws from von Tepl’s beautiful language, rich in allegories and poetic imagery, translating it into a powerful theatre. Using large-scale video projections, he demonstrates a creative fusion of live stage presence and new technologies.
Silviu Purcărete is one of the most significant directors from Eastern Europe with international recognition. He actively works in Romania and around the world. His theater, opera, and puppet performances, as well as films, have participated in and received awards at prestigious festivals in Avignon, Amsterdam, Antwerp, Brussels, Edinburgh, Melbourne, Montreal, Milan, Naples, Sarajevo, São Paulo, Tokyo, Vienna, Varna, and many others. In 2002, he founded his own company in France. Since 2003, Silviu Purcărete has been an individual member of the Union of European Theatres. The Vasile Alecsandri National Theatre in Iași, where he staged The Ploughman and Death, is the oldest national theater in Romania and one of the most prestigious cultural institutions in the country.
In Romanian with surtitles in Bulgarian and English.