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