by Slavomir Mrožek
Translation: Ioana and Tudor Savu
National premiere

Artistic direction: Alexandru Colpacci
Scenography: Tatiana Manolescu Uleu
Premiere date: September 23, 1977

In "The Emigrants", Slawomir Mrozek paints a painful picture of the dramas of uprooting, ironically and subtly portraying two Polish emigrants in Paris. The social and economic drama doubles the moral and psychological drama of those who emigrated in search of well-being. The juxtaposition between the ideal and the disappointment experienced is dramatic.

The two emigrants are radically different in structure and training: AA is an intelligent, detached intellectual, in love with concepts, exalted and visionary; XX is a cunning and pathetic worker, robust and at the same time morally fragile, vulnerable due to the circumstances he finds himself in. The two fail to communicate, accuse each other, suspect each other, despise each other, even reaching the brink of murder. What unites them then? The sordid basement in which they live; homesickness; nationality, the condition of pariah. „"But, perhaps more than that, regret, notes Bogdan Ulmu in "Literary Romania" (1977). The fact that their only certainty was their ethnic affiliation, their geographical homeland; through it they had a purpose in the world, it had offered them a family, a profession, an existential meaning. Running away, they did not leave "towards something, but from something", a nuance that they realize belatedly, with tears in their eyes".

They continue to dream of the land of promises, of happiness, but through a painful paradox, it becomes the country they left and may never return to.

Distribution:

AA:  Mircea Constantinescu 
XX:  Radu Vaida

– The show was awarded with directing awards for the show and for interpretation at the Bârlad Directing Colloquium (1978) and the ATM Award for directing: Alexandru Colpacci
– In 1982 the show was broadcast on national television