by Dumitru Solomon

Artistic direction: Alexandru Colpacci
Decor: I. Géza Bíró
Costumes: Tatiana Manolescu Uleu
Premiere date: October 9, 1980

The play "Diogenes the Dog" together with "Plato" and "Socrates" make up a trilogy that is part of a series titled by the author "Contemporary Masks", through which he aimed to dramatically transpose symbols, signs and ideas of moral existence. A play like "Diogenes the Dog" moves away from the idea of "philosophical biography", "sentimental life" or "exemplary destiny" and becomes a metaphor for the universal and contemporary man, troubled by the perennial dilemmas of existence.

As Valeriu Râpeanu notes in the program of the show, the play can be associated with the theater of ideas, in the lineage of Camil Petrescu. As in his theater, the intellectual is at the center in his relationship with the institutionalized forms of power; the confrontation in the moments of maximum tragedy takes place in the field of ideas. In Dumitru Solomon's play, the idea – in this case the idea of freedom – acquires a concrete existence and function.

Considered among the founders of the Cynic philosophical school, Diogenes lived in an Athens that only retained the memory of its famous democratic principles. Showing his unreserved hostility towards the rulers (he is the dog that bites the ostentatiously merciful hand that holds out to him the bone indispensable to life), Diogenes aims to free himself from all social and human servitude: he will live by begging, he will sleep under the open sky, he will not be tied to anyone, he will remain indifferent to everything. He cherishes the hope that he will be listened to, followed, that he will contribute to the purification of morals. When he falls in love, he is afraid that he will be chained, but by giving up love, he feels that he has lost his humanity. In his conflicted interiority, Diogenes loves his will to freedom and hates his inability to have it.

Finally, Diogenes, until then the embodiment of the absolute, unwavering in his aspiration for freedom, begins to doubt himself and enters into a dialogue with his own conscience. He wonders if such freedom, at the limit of elementary life, is possible or is it just a utopia. He understands that society „cannot be changed by imprecations, nor by the most exemplary and stubborn singular protest, but, probably, by the consistent effort of its good side against its bad side…” (Valentin Silvestru in „Romania Literara” no. 48/29, Nov. 1973).

Distribution:

Aristodemus:  Liviu Rozorea
Xeniades:  Jean Sandulescu
Pasiphon:  Nicolae Barosan, Dan Glasu
The guitarist:  Florian Chelu
Diogenes:  Eugen Harizomenov
Aristippus:  Eugen Tugulea
Woman:  Mariana Neagu
The old man:  Nicholas Thomas
The Guard and the Servant:  John Martin
Hipparchia:  Ileana Iurciuc
Plato:  Ion Abrudan
Metrocles:  Laurian Jivan
Father:  Marcel Segărceanu
The slave:  Grig Schiţcu
Alexander the Great:  Marcel Popa

Technical director: Mărioara Goina
Prompter: Dimitrios Stefanidis
Lighting: Vasile Blejan
Sound: Dorel Olea