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