Comedy by Radu Stanca
Absolute premiere

Artistic director: Miron Niculescu (National Theatre "ILCaragiale" Bucharest)
Assistant director: Nicolae Toma
Scenography: Elena Ionescu
Music: Zoltán Boros
Choreography: Eva Ombódi
Premiere date: February 16, 1969

Part of a long line of writings inspired by ancient culture, the play "Critis" or "The Quarrel of the Gods" has been considered by critics as an exercise in irony on mythological themes. Phoebus, Hera, Zeus, Athena are satirically characterized in scenes of slapstick comedy, but which retain an undoubted freshness and common sense. The pretext for the quarrel of the gods is a young and beautiful mortal - the Athenian Critis, who wins a beauty contest held in Thessaly, while Aphrodite, participating incognito in the contest, comes in second place. The insult to beauty cannot go unpunished, so Aphrodite and her husband, Hephaistos, ask Zeus for permission to "scold" Critis. Pallas Athena, the virgin goddess, who has maintained a manifest antipathy towards Aphrodite ever since the incident with Paris' apple, takes Critis under her double protection – as an inhabitant of Athens and as a virgin. From this moment on, the entanglements and quarrels on Olympus are continuous, involving more and more gods, all subject to the same passions, envy, jealousy, resentment as humans, biased and arbitrary in judgments and actions. Only Phoebus enjoys the scandal, as a diversion that will further dissipate the languor that reigns on Olympus. He too, inspired by Platonic philosophical theories, finds the explanation for the phenomenon by which Aphrodite could be defeated precisely in a beauty contest: "Aphrodite is beauty itself. Critis is just a beautiful girl. It is natural that people only recognize imitations, not the supreme model."„

Started on Olympus, the quarrel descends to earth, where the gods try to organize a second edition of the beauty contest, in which Zeus, disguised as the king of the city, will choose Aphrodite as the winner, restoring her to her natural rights and erasing the initial insult. However, struck by Eros' arrow, Zeus also falls in love with Critis, while Hera makes bold plans to cheat on him with Phoebus. In the end, everything returns to its original state, although the old antipathies and wars do not die out, and Critis, the mortal gifted with an incredible chance, will marry the true king of the city, young, handsome, to her measure, thus ending with a happy ending this farce with meaning, this contemporary joke on a classic canvas that reveals the patterns of truth and human beauty.

Distribution:

Zeus:  Nicholas Thomas
The King:  Ben Dumitrescu
Hera:  Doina Ioja
Pallas Athena:  Alla Tautu
Aphrodite:  Simona Constantinescu
Phoebus:  Nicolae Barosan
Hermes:  Jean Sandulescu
Hephaestus:  Ion Tomorrow
Eros:  Ana Popa
Criticism:  Gina Nicolae
Coryphaeus I:  Octavian Uleu
Coryphaeus II:  John the Baptist

Technical director: Elena Varlam
Prompter: Sofica Spoiala