Satire in two parts by Aurel Baranga

Artistic director: Ion Deloreanu
Scenography: Tatiana Manolescu Uleu
Premiere date: March 16, 1968

„"Public Opinion" is one of the most performed plays from the communist period in Romanian theaters. The title of the play is justified by the author as follows: "... I believe with boundless power in the strength of this collective character who cannot be misled and whose judgments are always without error. The people - that is, Public Opinion - sanction with a sense of justice that excludes any error.".

The author emphasizes the unbearable and dangerous presence of non-values (cowardice, irresponsibility, hypocrisy, demagogy, obtuseness, favoritism) and the need for a lucid and uncompromising attitude to eliminate them. Indeed, such negative values are one after another compromised, treated ironically or caricatured, and charged with polemics.

The unique element of the play is the encouragement of at least tacit participation by the audience: a character steps out of the conventional time and space of the show and addresses the audience directly, urging them to take part in the "debate" and find a solution to the conflict.

In the article "La o nouă lectură", from România Literară, no. 14/2003, the critic Alex Ştefănescu considers Aurel Baranga "an IL Caragiale product of communist culture (…). Both playwrights bring everyday life to the stage, with its agitated insignificance, cultivate the comic of language, exploiting the resources of orality, imagine qui-pro-quos, establish a complicity with the audience, above the characters. And yet, Aurel Baranga fails to reconstruct the brilliance of IL Caragiale's plays, being moralizing, not cynical, explicit, not equivocal, prosaic, not poetic."„

Distribution:

Chitlaru:  George Pintilescu, Eugen Tugulea
Gina:  Viorica Cernucan
Backstage director:  Grig Schiţcu
The director:  Ion Abrudan
Director Cristinoiu:   Vladimir Jurascu 
Pascalides:  Jean Sandulescu
Little Turkey:  Nicholas Thomas
Bajenaru:  John the Baptist
Ionita:  John Martin
Dumitras:  Nicolae Barosan
Manolescu:  Ion Tomorrow
Braharu:  Octavian Uleu 
Squid:  Ben Dumitrescu
A secretary:  Doina Ioja
George Ciorei:  Marcel Segărceanu
Spectator Ion Ion:  Valentin Avrigeanu
His wife:  Anca Miere Chirilă
Minister Brana:  George Musceleanu

Technical director: Dalma Simionescu
Prompter: Irina Rézműves
Sound: Dorel Olea