he played the role of Elephant Foot. In 1997, he was in Piţa's The Man of the Day, which was based on a screenplay by Radu F. Alexandru, and, in 1999, starred alongside Hungarian and Romanian actors in Gábor Tompa's Chinese Defense. Rebengiuc also starred as Grigore Cafanu in Pintilie's 1998 film Last Stop Paradise (awarded the Special Grand Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival). He was also sporadically present on the stage with Bulandra, and stated that he was not interested in starring in works of experimental theater, indicating that it did not suit his taste. Between 1990 and 1996, he was head of the Theater Institute. Speaking in 2005, he said that his ultimate goal was to be "a great actor", elaborating that this implied: "acting in a role and not having anything to reproach myself afterwards. Acting without any specks, being without fault, this is what makes me continue." He made a similar statement in 2008, adding: "I do not act beyond reproach. I have good accomplishments, but there are those sections of a part that I do not cover [...]. When there will no longer be such uncovered sections [...] only then will I say: man, I'm a great actor!" He was Caliban in Bulandra's 1991 production of William Shakespeare's The Tempest, appearing alongside his fellow actor and revolutionary Ion Caramitru. He starred in several main roles in classical plays, and, as Nick Bottom in Ciulei's production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, received the UNITER prize. He had several main roles in play by acclaimed stage director Silviu Purcărete: Horazio in Carlo Goldoni's The Comical Theater, Pelasgus in Aeschylus' The Suppliants, and the title role in Shakespeare's King Lear. In 2001, Rebengiuc and his wife appeared together in Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, produced for Bulandra by Russian director Yuri Kordonsky. The same year, he was Fetisov in Hristo Boytchev's The Colonel Bird and appeared in Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot (directed by, respectively, Alexandru Dabija and Gábor Tompa). Rebengiuc also appeared in his first major television production, Tandreţea lăcustelor, adapted by Dan Necşulea from a screenplay by Eugene Pretorian, and aired by TVR 1 in 2003. It depicted the lives of people made rich and powerful by the Revolution, who invest their energies in undermining each other's positions. The same year, he again collaborated with Pintilie, starring opposite Răzvan Vasilescu and Niki and Flo,