by Marin Sorescu

Artistic direction and musical illustration: Ion Ciubotaru
Scenography: Vioara Bara
Premiere date: May 7, 1998

A modern historical play, "The Cold" revives with ironic and allegorical verve an episode of the national past set during the reign of Vlad the Impaler. Sultan Mehmed II leads a military expedition to the north of the Danube, with the aim of dethroning Ţepeş and enthroning Radu the Handsome, his usurping brother. Radu the Handsome has no remorse at the thought of dethroning his blood brother, and he does not seem to notice how dearly Mehmed's help will cost him. He warns him that he will not have the right to have his own army and that the rulers will not rule the country for more than three or four years, because the throne will be bought with a lot of gold from the Turkish gate.

On the other hand, instead of focusing on the military aspects of his position, the sultan, feeling the inferiority of Turkish culture in relation to the Greek one, works with the zeal of a founder on the Turkish alphabet, composes odes, elegies, gazelles, and has a debutante's trepidation while waiting for the verdicts of the literary critic of the Pasha of Vidin. The cage in which the representatives of Byzantium conquered by Mohammed (the Emperor, the Empress, War, Finances, Isabella, Stratos) are carried is also part of the Turkish procession, characters who behave without considering their state of captivity. As he approaches the Danube and is confronted with surprise attacks by the Romanians, the sultan decides to give up the status of creator in order to become the Conqueror again. However, the end consists in the victory of the Romanians over the numerically superior Turkish army, so that Mohammed's expedition becomes an adventure subject to the hazards of history.

Set almost entirely within the Turkish court or in the army, the play ultimately narrows down to an intimate setting – the family of the Romanian captain Toma, with his wife, Mrs. Stanca, and the old maid, Safta. The ending also explains the play's metaphorical title: the sacrifice of the Romanians, their death is hidden under the discreet euphemism of a simple cold.

In "Romania Literară" of February 25, 2006, critic Nicolae Manolescu places the play "Răceala", together with "A treia țeapă" in the area of political theater, considering them "parodies on the theme of abuses in totalitarian regimes". Thus, history remains only the pretext for meditation on the human condition, either in the hypostasis of the ephemerality of its glory, or in the impossibility of affirming freedom of thought in totalitarian political systems.

Distribution:

Muhammad II:  Petre Panait
The Lieutenant and the Harapul:  Sebastian Wolf
Pasha of Vidin:  Dorin Presecan
Radu the Handsome:  John Coman
Pinzaru and Papuc:  Ion Abrudan
Thomas:  Doru Firte
Mrs. Stanca:  Elvira Platon Rîmbu
Safta and Vica:  Mariana Vasile
Ostean, Stan and Neagoe:  Ion Ruscut, George Voinese
The cowboy:  Eugen Harizomenov
The Emperor:  Nicholas Thomas
Empress:  Simona Constantinescu
Zunis and Finance:  Ion Tomorrow
The war:  Tiberiu Covaci
Isabel:  Mirela Nita
Stratos:  Marcel Popa
Cadana I and Gheorghina:  Andra Tudor Cornea
Cadana II:  Angela Tanko
Baftangioglu:  Eugen Tugulea
Besleague:  Alexander Cornea
Flower:  Mariana Presecan
Tilina:  Monalisa Basarab
Pride:  Loredana Iuga
Rita:  Ofelia Fîrte
In figuration:  Gheorghe Iernea, Nicu Segărceanu, Alexandru Luca, Cristian Segărceanu, Florin Codila, Istvan Kovacs

Technical director: Florin Popescu
Prompter: Iuliana Chelu
Lighting: Iosif Balogh, Sorin Precup
Sound: Sorin Domide

Dramatization by Elena Preda and Eugen Ţugulea, based on an idea from the novel The most beloved of earthlings by Marin Preda
Absolute premiere

Artistic director: Eugen Ţugulea
Scenography: Cristian Rusu
Premiere date: March 17, 1998

The vast epic canvas of the polyphonic novel "The Most Beloved of the Earthlings" finds a unique dramatization in the Oradea play "If Love Aren't...". The show evokes a relatively recent history - the "obsessive decade" of the '50s-'60s -, unembellished, analyzed and assumed from the perspective of Victor Petrini, the protagonist and narrator of the events recounted in an orderly, chronological retrospective.

The emphasis falls on the "terrible tragedies in the bedroom", as Ovid S. Crohmălniceanu qualifies the traumas of the hero's sentimental life. Petrini goes through four different erotic experiences, with initiatory significance, alongside Nineta, Căprioara, Matilda and Suzy. Each engagement in eros turns into a failure that marks the hero more than all the injustices and serious social events that surround him. Intellectually lucid, Petrini is a philosophy professor imprisoned for political reasons (alleged collaboration with the legionary organization "Black Sumanele"); the concentration camp experience at Canal and then in a lead mine makes him know human degradation in its most shocking forms and the law "kill in order not to be killed". Upon leaving prison, he becomes a rat exterminator, then an accountant, refusing to make any compromise with the communist power (for example, writing a Marxist book). Losing everything in public, social life, Petrini bets everything on happiness in love, because that's all he has left. When finally, things seem to be getting back on track and his relationship with Suzy seems fulfilled, Petrini unexpectedly becomes fate's plaything again: meeting Suzy's ex-husband, he defends himself from him, throws him from the cable car cabin and ends up in prison again.

The central idea is summarized in the title and in the final phrase, of biblical origin: "If there is no love, there is nothing". Through Victor Petrini, the history of a feeling is traced, analyzing its progressive degradation. Paradoxically, "the most beloved of earthlings" is a man to whom destiny forbids access to love. The only moral imperative for overcoming the condition of being a toy of fate remains, however, as the ending emphasizes, love. The last words define the condition of the character who rose on the spiral of knowledge to the truth that without love life has no meaning.

Distribution:

Victor Petrini:  John Coman
Deer:  Ofelia Fîrte
The investigator and the chief:  George Voinese
Petrica Nicolau:  Alexander Cornea
Matilda:  Elvira Platon Rîmbu
Tasia:  Mariana Neagu
The spot:  Sebastian Wolf
Basil:  Ion Abrudan
Tamara:  Mirela Nita Lupu
Artimon:  George Winter
Ion Micu:  Doru Firte
Clara:  Monalisa Basarab
Parent:  Mariana Vasile
Grandmother:  Simona Constantinescu
Grandfather:  Eugen Tugulea
Potter:  Ion Tomorrow
Colonel:  Eugen Harizomenov 
Nineta:  Andra Tudor Cornea
Suzi:  Mariana Presecan
Pence:  Ion Ruscut
An agent:  Nicolae Segarceanu

Technical director: Eugenia Popa
Prompter: Florence Szabo
Lighting: Iosif Balogh, Sorin Precup
Sound: Sorin Domide

Comedy by Alexandr Ghelman
Translation: Tudor Steriade

Artistic direction and scenography: Ion Mâinea
Premiere date: February 28, 1998

„"In a Park... on a Bench" can be considered an original and modern love story, between two people whose destinies meet, apparently by chance, in a park, on a bench, at sunset. The play is constituted as a succession of confessions, a game of masks with fragments of truth and as much fiction as possible, through which the two try to establish a communion, explore paths of understanding, of deep connections. Their dialogue is also an ethical debate, marked by helplessness, violence and hopelessness.

SHE wants urgently and desperately to relieve her loneliness, but she tries to meet her partner and ideal of fulfillment in the park, the favorite place of party people looking for adventures. And HE is alone, does not know the warmth of a home, has no friends, nor moral support. He invents sad biographies, meant to impress women, themselves incapable of discerning the truth. HE seeks and cultivates loneliness, even in a two-hour date-adventure. That is why HER dreams of marital harmony, stability, fidelity and certainties do not awaken in HIM the expected effect. Moreover, neither of them mentions love, the only way in which the possible couple would access happiness. In the park, in the shadows of the night, everything seems possible, but at sunrise, in the light of reality?…

Distribution:

Vera:  Mirela Nita Lupu
Fedea:  Sebastian Wolf

Technical director: Florin Popescu
Prompter: Florence Szabo
Lighting: Iosif Balogh, Sorin Precup
Sound: Sorin Domide

by Molière
Translation: Sica Alexandrescu and Mircea Stefanescu

Artistic director: Radu Ghiţulescu
Scenography: Cristian Rusu
Music: László Mircea Horváth
Premiere date: January 31, 1998

Combining the ancient heritage of French farce with tradition commedia dell'arte, In "The Unwilling Doctor," Molière creates a satire of the world of doctors (a theme also addressed in other plays, such as "Medical Love," "The Flying Doctor," or "The Imaginary Patient"), whom he considers great charlatans of his time, more concerned with profit than with the health of their patients.

To avenge the beating she received from her husband, Sganarelle, Martine recommends him as a reputable doctor, but a peculiar one, who does not recognize his medical knowledge unless he receives a few sticks in the back. The servants of the wealthy Géronte apply this treatment to him, then hire him to cure Lucinde, the master's daughter, affected by a strange muteness since her father decided to marry her to a man she does not love. Thus, the humble woodcutter unexpectedly finds himself in the position of a scholar, without having any of his knowledge or skills. However, he unexpectedly enters into the new role well, understanding what no one in Géronte's family understood: that Lucinde is faking the illness to postpone the marriage arranged by her father, being in love with Léandre. Sganarelle secretly helps the two young men, and an inheritance from a rich uncle makes Géronte accept his future son-in-law without hesitation.

Distribution:

Gerontius:  Doru Firte
Lucinde:  Angela Tanko
Leander:  Sebastian Wolf
Sganarelle:  John Coman
Martin:  Elvira Platon Rîmbu
Mr. Robert:  Ion Ruscut
Lucas:  Alexander Cornea
Jacqueline:  Andra Tudor Cornea
In the intermezzo:  Mirela Nita Lupu, Loredana Iuga, Monalisa Basarab, Ofelia Fîrte

Technical director: Eugenia Popa
Prompter: Iuliana Chelu
Lights: Sorin Precup
Sound: Sorin Domide

by Mikhail Bulgakov

Translation, dramatization and artistic direction: Vitalii Lupaşcu
Scenography: Vioara Bara
Assistant director: Sebastian Lupu
Musical preparation: Zoltán Rezműves
Premiere date: October 24, 1997

Interested in experiments, Professor Preobrazhensky performs a testicular and pituitary transplant from a deceased criminal to the Maidan dog Sarik, who, hungry but gentle, seeks shelter in his house. As a result of the operation, the man Poligraf Poligrafovich Gogoloy is born, who turns out to be more greedy, more immoral and more dangerous than the animal from which he came. He finds a position in an institution specializing in the elimination of stray animals (especially cats) in a Moscow at the beginning of communism. Gogoloy is endowed with the most negative characteristics of both species from which he comes, proving that man, a superior and creative being, can at the same time be one of the most vile creatures, with the most cruel heart that has ever existed.

Distribution:

Professor Philip Philipovich Preobrazhensky:  Ion Abrudan 
Ivan Alexandrovich Bormental:  Alexander Cornea
Zina:  Mariana Presecan
Daria Petrovna:  Mariana Neagu
Svonder:  Nicholas Thomas
Vosnesenskaya:  Ileana Iurciuc
Pestruhina:  Andra Tudor Cornea
Mr. I:  John Coman
Mr. II:  Eugen Tugulea
Polygraph Poligrafovich Gogoloy:  Petre Panait
Duduia Pasha:  Mirela Nita
The photographer:  Sebastian Wolf
Reporters:  Ion Ruscut, Tiberiu Covaci
In other roles:  Sorin Precup, Gheorghe Iernea, Cristian Segărceanu, Nicu Segărceanu, Alexandru Luca, Florin Codila

Technical director: Eugenia Popa
Prompter: Iuliana Chelu
Lights: Iosif Balogh
Sound: Sorin Domide

AWARDS:
– Best Actor Award: Petre Panait, at the Short Theatre Week, 1997 edition

Comedy in two parts by Eduardo de Filippo
Translation: Anatol Ursu

Artistic direction, scenography and musical illustration: Ion Ciubotariu
Premiere date: September 18, 1997

Rita and Rodolfo, husband and wife, live in Naples, in the house of Maestro Agostino (a former theater guard) and Mrs. Bettina. The four of them have debts of 300,000 lire and they imagine a stratagem to get out of this situation.

Rita pretends to be a prostitute and attracts potential clients by bathing in her underwear near the window overlooking the alley. Once the amount is agreed (10,000 lire), the clients enter the house, but discover Rodolfo lying in bed and pretending to be dead. Rita's hysterical scenes when she explains the situation and especially the presence of the corpse only succeed in sending the unfortunates running. Each such encounter culminates in the appearance of Maestro Agostino who, wearing a top hat, declaims a delirium of incoherent phrases.

When they have collected about 80,000 lire, a new client appears: Mr. Attilio Samueli. At first, he is terrified by the presence of the corpse, but eventually discovers the scam. Then Rita, Rodolfo, and Maestro Agostino try to justify their ploy, talking about their personal misfortunes, about the unemployment and misery of which they are victims, about the brutalization that can occur when society closes every door in your face. Mr. Attilio understands, but by explaining his personal situation, he reverses the role of the victim who needs help. After the death of his wife, he explains, his frenetic sex life has ended, a fact that, according to his doctor, puts his life in danger.

To convince Rita to spend a night with him, Attilio offers them 300,000 lire, which would cover all their debts. The offer leaves Agostino and Bettina speechless, and causes a hysterical fit in Rodolfo, who ends up believing himself to be "an old madman who sits and watches another man sleep with his wife". Attilio does not lose his temper and re-launches an offer of 500,000 lire, stunning everyone and sits in bed waiting for the answer. In complete silence, Rita and Rodolfo try to make a decision together. While they try to decide, Maestro Agostino realizes that the old man has fallen asleep in the meantime and devises another plan: to turn off the light in the room where the bed is, turn all the clocks forward and place Rita next to Mr. Attilio. The plan works: waking up shortly after, Attilio believes the act is consummated; looking at his watch and seeing that it is late, he quickly leaves the room, not before leaving the promised amount. The four roommates congratulate each other on the successful plan, then sit down at the table.

Rita's dream of happiness, based on the new wealth she has gained, is interrupted by the division made by Agostino. Rita and Rodolfo will only have the earnings from previous clients and not the entire amount left after paying the debts. This division, as well as the lack of reaction from her husband, drives Rita so crazy that she decides to abandon the three of them and take her destiny into her own hands. Master Agostino, with his top hat on his head, tries pathetically to stop her, but she does not back down. Firm in her decision, Rita runs away from the house, Rodolfo tries to stop her and all the while Bettina and Agostino put the "loot" in a safe place.

Distribution:

Rita:  Mariana Presecan
Rodolfo:  Dorin Presecan
Agostino Mascariello:  Ion Tomorrow
Bettina:  Ileana Iurciuc
Antonio:  Alexander Cornea
Giovanni:  George Voinese
Attilio:  Marcel Popa
Michele:  Loredana Iuga
Robert:  Ion Ruscut

Technical director: Florin Popescu
Prompter: Florence Szabo
Lighting: Iosif Balogh, Laviniu Goron
Sound: Sorin Domide

Rock theater show
Stage adaptation: Daniel Vulcu and Mircea Chirilă after Ion Creangă

Artistic director: Daniel Vulcu
Scenography: Alexandru Radu
Music: Florian Chelu, Ludovic Boross and Oliver Robert Bader
Choreography: Ildikó Lovas and Ioan Silaghi
Premiere date: May 22, 1997

Distribution:

Ivan:  Ion Abrudan, Daniel Vulcu
God:  Alexander Cornea
Saint Peter:  Ion Ruscut
The boyar:  Marcel Popa
Death:  Mariana Presecan
Maid:  Monalisa Basarab
Stepladder:  Roxana Ivanciu
The Devil I:  Loredana Iuga
The Devil II:  Andra Tudor
In other roles:  Ofelia Fîrte, Gabriela Abrudan, Cristina Abrudan, Alexandrina Crainic, Ozana Moruţ, Carmen Popa, Mirela Târhaş, Raul-George Chiş, Cristian Goron, Sándor-Lóránt Hegyi, Zoltán Paniti 
Orchestra: Florian Chelu, Ludovic Boross, Cornel Ungur, László Mircea Horváth, Oliver Robert Bader

Technical director: Florin Popescu
Prompter: Iuliana Chelu
Lighting: Iosif Balogh, Laviniu Goron
Sound: Sorin Domide

by ILCaragiale

Artistic director: Radu Ghiţulescu
Scenography: Cristian Rusu
Music: László Mircea Horváth 
Premiere date: May 17, 1997

The action of the drama "Năpasta" focuses on the Ion-Anca-Dragomir triangle and develops, with a manifest dramatic tension, the theme of blood that demands blood. Blinded by erotic passion for Anca, Dragomir killed her husband, Dumitru. The victim's tobacco, pipe and amnar were found at the forester Ion's and, in the absence of another perpetrator discovered, he was sentenced to hard years of hard labor. Innocent in the eyes of the world, thanks to the woman's sensitive intuition, Dragomir is certainly the murderer. The passion for revenge will follow Anca for nine years and, in order to carry out her plan, she marries the murderer of her first husband. In these terms, director Radu Ghițulescu intuits a mythical, archetypal world: "The situation the woman married to her husband's killer is quite widespread in the mythical Balkan area" (from the show's program booklet).

While Ion atones for an act he did not commit and goes mad, Dragomir evolves from trust to despair and hatred towards the one he loved. Moreover, he is haunted by visions and dreams, Dumitru's ghost follows him everywhere, and his panic, consistently cultivated by Anca, will lead him to his final collapse. As critic V. Fanache observes in "Caragiale" (1984), the situation imagined in "Năpasta" proves "a classic balance between the punishment that falls on the innocent Ion's head and the one that will be mercilessly inflicted on Dragomir, the real culprit. (…) Dragomir's madness grows the more stubbornly he tries to hide an increasingly obvious truth, while Ion's madness manifests itself because he had failed to reveal a truth through which he could have recovered his dignity." With the appearance of Ion, who escaped from prison, Dragomir's reason degrades before the viewer's eyes.

Realizing his uselessness in the world, Ion commits suicide, and Anca accuses Dragomir of committing the crime, handing him over to the authorities; the cruel revenge occurs shortly before the ten-year term, at which, even though he was guilty of Dumitru's death, Dragomir would have been released.

Distribution:

Dragomir:  Doru Firte
Anna:  Elvira Platon Rîmbu
Ion:  Petre Panait
George:  John Coman

Technical director: Eugenia Popa
Prompter: Florence Szabo
Lighting: Iosif Balogh, Laviniu Goron
Sound: Sorin Domide

by Plautus
Translation: Nicolae Teica

Stage adaptation and artistic direction: Tudor Chirilă
Scenography: Cristian Rusu
Premiere date: April 5, 1997

A Macedonian captain has bought the Phoenician slave from Ballio, the woman-dealer, for 2000 drachmas, paying 1500 on the spot. The girl will be sent to him by his messenger, Harpax, who brings Ballio the missing 500 drachmas. Calidorus, the son of an Athenian nobleman, is in love with the girl and laments to his slave, Pseudolus. Next, the inventive slave, playful, sarcastic, ready to deceive everyone with ease, intercepts the captain's message and, after some clever stratagems, takes Phoenicia to his young master, allowing the fulfillment of the love of the two.

The postmodern stage version, signed by Tudor Chirilă after Plaut's text, brings this plot to the present day, in a twilight world, slightly promiscuous, lacking horizon, a kind of ghetto that finds its only refuge in the existence of the God and the Goddess (characters imagined by the director). But even these are not authentic mythological beings, their presence, which evolves from elegance to irony and mockery, suggesting precisely the impossibility of any salvation.

Distribution:

Pseudolus:  John Coman
Calidorus:  Alexander Cornea
Ballio:  Doru Firte
Simon:  Tiberiu Covaci
Callipho:  George Voinese
Harpax:  Andra Tudor
Charinus:  Monalisa Basarab
The chef:  Loredana Iuga
Feeling:  Ilie Turcu
Phoenicia:  Roxana Ivanciu
Hedylia:  Ofelia Fîrte
The boy:  Alexandru Firte
God:  Dorin Presecan
Deity:  Mariana Presecan

Technical director: Eugenia Popa
Prompter: Florence Szabo
Lighting: Iosif Balogh, Laviniu Goron
Sound: Sorin Domide

by Wolfgang Borchert
Translation: H. Matei

Artistic direction and scenography: Sergiu Savin
Stage movement: Angela Doni
Premiere date: December 22, 1996

The action of the play "Outside the Door" takes place in Hamburg, in 1945, in Germany just emerging from World War II. Disfigured physically and mentally, the soldier Beckmann returns home from Siberia, where he was a prisoner for a thousand days, to discover that he has lost everything: his wife, his home, his beliefs and his illusions. All the doors he knocks on are closed and even the Elbe River seems to refuse him suicide. Overwhelmed by the horrors of war, chaos, violence, despair, hunger and irrationality, he fervently seeks a balance that he will not be able to find. He is "one of those who return home and in the end do not return home, because home means outside, in front of the door. Their Germany is outside, in the rainy night, on the street. This is their Germany.” (“Prologue”). Using expressionist means, the German playwright conveys a message about the need for hope, faith, love, the need for God in an alienated world that has lost all ordering meaning.

Distribution:

Beckmann:  John Coman
A girl:  Mariana Presecan
Her husband:  Dorin Presecan
A colonel:  Eugen Tugulea
His daughter:  Monalisa Basarab
The cabaret director:  Doru Firte
The old man:  Ilie Turcu
The Entrepreneur and a Street Sweeper:  Ion Abrudan
Mrs. Kramer:  Elvira Platon Rîmbu
Other:  Alexander Cornea
Elbe:  Mariana Vasile
In other roles:  Andra Tudor, Loredana Iuga, Ofelia Fîrte

Technical director: Eugenia Popa
Prompter: Florence Szabo
Lights: Iosif Balogh
Sound: Sorin Domide

by William Shakespeare
Translation: Virgil Teodorescu

Artistic direction: Alexandru Colpacci
Assistant director: Petre Panait
Scenography: Vioara Bara
Music: Delia Serban
Premiere date: December 5, 1996

One of Shakespeare's most representative pastoral comedies, "As You Like It" unfolds a lively action, in which passions, especially love, set in motion a picturesque group of characters grouped around a duke who has lost his prerogatives - through the usurpation of the throne by his brother - and has taken refuge in the Forest of Arden, along with a few faithful courtiers. At the court of the usurping duke, only the legitimate duke's daughter, Rosalind, remains to keep her cousin and friend, Celia, company. The fate of the girls takes a very special turn when the usurping duke orders Rosalind to follow her father into exile, and Celia decides to accompany her good friend in exile. Considering that it would be reckless to travel in their expensive clothes, the two ladies disguise themselves, assuming new identities: Rosalind becomes the young peasant Ganymede, and Celia - his sister, Aliena. Arriving in the Forest of Arden, the girls will become participants in a series of events through which all suffering will be alleviated and all love shared. The idylls of Rosalinda-Orlando and Celia-Oliver are joined by two others: Audrey-Tocilă and Thebe-Silvius. The play ends with the joy of the four simultaneous weddings and with the news that the usurping duke returns the duchy to his brother, giving up the power acquired through illegitimate means. Only the aphoristic observations of the jester Tocilă and the bitter reflections of the courtier Jacques (about the man abandoned in need, about the irreversible passage of time, about the hypocrisy at court, as well as the famous monologue in which the world is likened to the theater) draw attention to the fact that in reality, life is not so simple and as in the play in which everything ends in complete harmony.

Distribution:

The exiled duke and Frederick the usurper:  Ion Abrudan
Amiens:  Ileana Iurciuc
Jacques:  Daniel Vulcu
The Beau:  Nicolae Barosan
Charles:  Tiberiu Covaci
Oliver de Bois:  Ilie Turcu
Jacques de Bois:  Dorin Presecan
Orlando:  Doru Firte
Adam:  Eugen Tugulea
Grindstone:  Petre Panait
Sir Oliver Martext:  Nicholas Thomas
Corin:  George Voinese
Silvius:  Alexander Cornea
William:  John Coman
Rosalind:  Roxana Ivanciu
Celia:  Andra Tudor
Phoebe:  Elvira Platon Rîmbu
Audrey:  Mariana Presecan

Technical director: Eugenia Popa
Prompter: Iuliana Chelu
Lighting: Balogh Iosif, Laviniu Goron
Sound: Sorin Domide

Comedy in three acts by Victor Eftimiu

Artistic direction and scenography: Eugen Harizomenov
Premiere date: May 30, 1996

Set around the local elections for the position of mayor in a small provincial town, the action of the comedy "The Man Who Saw Death" captures characteristic aspects of the life of Romanian society in the interwar period, revealing the false honorability of prominent citizens, the farce of the elections, but also the symbolic way in which the personal trajectories of individuals intersect and mutually influence each other.

Alexandru Filimon, a settled man with a family, becomes a local hero against his will by saving a suicidal vagrant from drowning. He takes advantage of the sensationalism of the incident and enters the good world to which he would not have had access until then. Thawed, opportunistic, but also full of charm and humor, he conquers or disorients everyone around him. He does not lack moralizing ambition, his poetic side: "I am the man who saw death, and I have known the price of life. You do not know how beautiful life is! You waste it on nothingness, you pass by it, you poison it with prejudices and foolish ambitions, you chase after money, after situations, you lie in wait for each other and you forge your own prison cells... I wanted to bring you something from the wind of distances, the unchaining..."„

Who will become responsible for the vagabond's fate? Alexandru Filimon, under the impetus of his first generous impulse. In a way, however, the vagabond also becomes responsible for the fate of his savior, propelling him to the position of mayor...

Distribution:

Alexander Filimon:  Petre Panait
Raluca Filimon:  Simona Constantinescu 
Alice Filimon:  Loredana Iuga
Mr. Leon:  Nicolae Barosan
George:  Ion Ruscut
The Tramp:  Daniel Vulcu

Technical director: Florin Popescu
Prompter: Florence Szabo
Lighting: Vasile Blejan, Iosif Balogh, Laviniu Goron
Sound: Sorin Domide

Drama by Federico Garcia Lorca
Translation: Cicerone Theodorescu

Artistic director: Irina Popescu-Boieru
Scenography: Vioara Bara
Incidental music: Eusebio Apostolache
Choreography: Gitta T. Săteanu
Premiere date: March 7, 1996

In an Andalusian village in the 1930s, the wealthiest woman in the community, Bernarda, loses her husband and enters the eight-year mourning period required by the tradition she religiously respects. The house thus becomes a tomb of silence for Bernarda, for the five daughters who see their youth killed, for Bernarda's mother, for the governess and the maid. Following Bernarda's despotic decisions, the women will live behind walls and drawn shutters, and will only go out to go to church, covered by black veils. Subject to ruthless conventions, the young girls live in a state of perpetual unfulfillment, in which resentments, repressed desires, hatred and frustration accumulate.

The approach of the most handsome young man in the village, Pepe Romano, to the eldest and youngest daughters causes drama in this universe of captivity: the object of desire of all these lonely women, Pepe asks Angustias to be his wife and receives permission to speak to her in the evening, in front of the bars of the window. Once this duty is fulfilled, hidden in the darkness of the courtyard, he meets Adela, the youngest of the family, beautiful and full of vitalistic enthusiasm. Pursued by the maid and jealous sisters, Adela sees her secret revealed to the family. To avoid scandal, Bernarda banishes Pepe from the village, and Adela, believing her lover dead, ends up committing suicide. Through her death, Adela determines the coalition of all those who had not dared to confront the tyrannical mother until then. Thus, unlike the Spanish dramatic text, the Oradea performance gives Adela's sacrifice a positive symbolic value: the promise of freedom.

Distribution:

Bernarda:  Mariana Vasile
Maria Josepha:  Ileana Iurciuc
At Poncia:  Mariana Neagu
Anguish:  Joanna Blaga 
Magdalena:  Mariana Presecan
Amelia:  Monalisa Basarab
Martyr:  Roxana Ivanciu
Adela:  Elvira Platon Rîmbu
Prudence:  Simona Constantinescu
The maid:  Andra Tudor
Girl:  Loredana Iuga
A woman:  Ofelia Fîrte

Technical director: Eugenia Popa
Prompter: Iuliana Chelu
Lighting: Vasile Blejan, Iosif Balogh, Laviniu Goron
Sound: Sorin Domide

by Matei Visniec

Artistic director: Petru Vutcărău
Scenography: Sergiu Savin
Premiere date: December 19, 1995

In a waiting room, where we do not know what awaits, three people try to cope with the lack of occupation, boredom and the passage of time. The fourth plays the cello, unperturbed, without stopping. If at first, his music arouses the interest of the others, this gradually turns into indifference, then even into exasperation, into the refusal to listen to the unknown singer shrouded in mystery. In the end, the instrumentalist will be forcibly evacuated, leaving behind the cello, awkward and useless. From here is born the leitmotif that will give the title of the play: "And what do we do with the cello?" enunciated almost obsessively towards the end. If at a first level, the theme of the incompatibility between art and the obtuseness of some individuals is approached, at another level, derived from the theater of the absurd, the play can be interpreted as a metaphor for the installation of a symptomatic state for contemporary man.

Distribution:

The man with the cello:  Stefan Rado
The man with the newspaper:  Doru Firte
The man with the stick:  Petre Panait
The veiled woman:  Elvira Platon Rîmbu

Technical director: Florin Popescu
Prompter: Florence Szabo
Lights: Iosif Balogh
Sound: Sorin Domide

AWARDS:
-Award for the best performance at the National Drama Festival, Timişoara, 1996
-Best Actor Award: Petre Panait
-Directing Award: Petru Vutcărău
-Scenography Award: Sergiu Savin
-Male Performance Award: Petre Panait, at the Târgu-Mureş Festival, 1996

by William Saroyan
Translation: Mihnea Gheorghiu

Artistic direction and scenography: Petru Vutcărău
Premiere date: December 5, 1995

The simple plot of the play "Hey, Good People!" captures the beginning of a love story between a Young Man in a Texas prison for "consensual rape" and a Girl who works in the kitchen. From their position as marginals of society, the two plan to run away together to San Francisco in search of new happiness; their attempt is thwarted, however, by the Husband of the alleged victim, who kills the Young Man, so that, before it can be fulfilled, their love is tragically shattered. A sad story about loneliness, innocence and how two people can find and lose each other in a single evening.

Distribution:

The young man:  Dorin Presecan
Girl:  Elvira Platon Rîmbu 
Husband:  George Voinese
Woman:  Joanna Blaga
Type II:  Ion Ruscut

Technical director: Ofelia Fîrte
Lights: Vasile Blejan, Laviniu Goron

Comedy in three acts by Victor Ion Popa

Artistic direction: Mihai Fotino
Assistant director: Mariana Neagu
Scenography: Bölöni Vilmos
Premiere date: December 12, 1995

In a small town in the Moldavian province, three small merchants of different ethnicities live a quiet life: Take-Romanian, Ianke-Jewish and Cadîr-Turk. Each of them runs a modest shop on the outskirts of the town, covering the small needs of the inhabitants. The life of the three unfolds according to some seemingly ancestral rhythms, slowly, without major events, in a kind of pleasant torpor. It is based on a long-established friendship (approximately thirty years) and reconfirmed daily through meaningful gestures. This perfect balance is interrupted by the arrival of Ana (Ianke's daughter) and Ionel (Take's son), who were studying in Bucharest, at the Commercial Academy. They announce their decision to get married. The loving parents would accept the marriage if they were not afraid of the public, which would condemn a relationship between two different ethnicities. All their spiritual turmoil is finally resolved by Cadîr, who helps the young people open a shop "in association". The new shop will be called "In Jerusalem", because "there we are both Turkish and Jewish and Christian".

Distribution:

Taches:  Ion Tomorrow
Yankee:  Eugen Harizomenov
Frame:  Eugen Tugulea
Elijah:  Nicholas Thomas
Baba Safta:  Simona Constantinescu
John:  Marius Costea
Anna:  Monalisa Basarab (debut)

Technical director: Florin Popescu
Prompter: Florence Szabo
Lighting: Vasile Blejan, Iosif Balogh, Laviniu Goron
Sound: Sorin Domide

Monodrama by NVGogol
Translation: Eusebiu Camilar

Artistic director: Anca Bradu
Scenography: Vioara Bara
Music and musical direction: Florian Chelu
Premiere date: October 6, 1995

"The Diary of a Madman" introduces us to the banal and boring life of Poprischin, a petty official in a ministry, whose main activities are copying and classifying documents, as well as sharpening pens for his director. Alone and devoid of the warmth of his peers, Poprischin keeps an intimate diary, in which he notes the various facts of his daily life. From it we learn details about the official's consuming passion for Sophie, his director's daughter, but also about his existential frustration and unfulfillment. On a rainy day, in front of a store, Poprischin overhears, as if it were one of the most natural things, a conversation between two dogs. From this point on, in the pages of the diary, the border between reality and imagination becomes increasingly uncertain. We witness Poprișcin's gradual slide into madness, through the disintegration of the self, the breaking of the natural order of things and the loss of the spatio-temporal landmarks noted in the diary. The need to be recognized and loved finds its reverse in a megalomania that makes him believe himself to be Ferdinand VIII, the King of Spain, confusing the asylum in which he is interned with the domain of the Spanish court, and the staff and the rest of the patients with the soldiers, grandees and inquisitors of this country. The brutal methods with which he is treated, the misunderstanding he encounters, the fear and delirium to which he falls prey, give rise, in the end, to a tragic return to his origins, a pathetic invocation of his mother and his parental home, a cry for help from the one who had asked, ultimately, for nothing more than the right to exist in the eyes of others.

Distribution:

Poprishcin:  Petre Panait

Technical director: Florin Popescu
Prompter: Florence Szabo
Lighting: Iosif Balogh, Laviniu Goron
Sound: Sorin Domide

AWARDS:
-Best Actor Award: Petre Panait
-Scenography Award: Vioara Bara, at the 10th edition of the Short Theatre Week, Oradea, 1995

by Ana Ripka-Rus (debut)

Artistic director: Iustina Prisacaru (debut)
Scenography: Vilmos Bölöni
Premiere date: October 5, 1995

A play with absurd and grotesque inserts, "Almost a Forest" evokes a strange world, undetermined in time or space, isolated behind a clump of trees that make up "almost a forest" and hide nameless, tormented, maladjusted and incoherent characters behind them.
At the center of this world is the Woman, who lives in self-imposed isolation, feeling guilty for having pushed her childhood lover to suicide. The reasons for this are unclear, but since then, the Woman has sunk into utter misanthropy, with her only companions being the Hunchback, who guards her gate and secretly loves her, the Madwoman (possibly the Woman's alter-ego), and the garden gnomes, who – she believes – only come to life at night. Both the Young Man's and the Policeman's subsequent intrusion into their world have erotic motivations and are seen as a threat to the comfortable solitude in which the three of them indulge.
The Lover and Mistress sneak into the attic of the house where the Woman lives every night. It is the same attic where, many years ago, the Woman and her lover met, none other than the Lover from the present, who once staged her suicide farce to free himself from a relationship that had become boring and too serious.

Distribution:

Woman:  Joanna Blaga
The young man:  Dorin Presecan
The hunchback:  Ion Abrudan
Crazy:  Mariana Presecan
The lover:  George Voinese
Mistress: Andra Tudor
Policeman:  Eugen Tugulea
In other roles:  Loredana Iuga, Marius Costea, Otilia Bosca

Technical director: Eugenia Popa
Prompter: Iuliana Chelu
Lights: Laviniu Goron
Sound: Sorin Domide