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