by DRPopescu
National premiere

Artistic direction: Alexandru Colpacci
Scenography: Tatiana Manolescu Uleu
Set design assistant: Iosif Kudelász
Premiere date: April 10, 1976

In "The Balcony", the author puts people of different ages into a moral equation, making them relive past history and understand present history, in order to confront each other and each with himself. The father, David Ionescu, the leader of a production unit, a former communist fighter in illegality, celebrates his birthday, taking stock of his life on this occasion. The son, Adrian, the living conscience of his youth, always reminds his father of the unfulfilled tasks; he draws his attention, with harshness and sarcasm, but also with tenderness, that he shelters worthless people, false friends, "moths of socialism" around him; he reproaches him for forgetting: the father has gradually distanced himself from the true, uplifting ideals of communist struggle; he seeks to convince him that the struggle waged in the past continues in his era, under other conditions and in other forms. To the mother, who has isolated herself from the world and is busy with gingerbread sculpture, Adrian demonstrates that selfishness is synonymous with cowardice. The dramatic plot becomes a great theatrical metaphor: under the distrustful gaze of the father, the impostors throw the son from the balcony, thus nullifying his revolutionary fervor, his call for intransigence and responsibility. Thus, the balcony, a symbol of neutral space, an extension of our peace and comfort, can become through indolence a repository of cowardice, impurities, sins and even crime.

Distribution:

Voichita:  Ileana Iurciuc 
Adrian:  Mircea Constantinescu
Melpometra:  Radu Vaida
Alex:  Eugen Harizomenov
The village:  Radu Neag
Cottage:  Ion Tomorrow
Bashat:  Ion Abrudan
Stella:  Doina Urlăţeanu, Alla Tăutu
David:  Eugen Tugulea
Rosalia:  Simona Constantinescu
Todera:   Marcel Popa
Fan:  Eugenia Papaiani

Technical director: Elena Varlam
Prompter: Rodica Branea
Lighting: Vasile Blejan
Sound: Dorel Olea