Comedy in four acts by G.Ciprian

Artistic director: Ion Dinescu (National Theatre Cluj-Napoca)
Assistant director: Dorel Urlăţeanu
Scenography: Eliza Popescu
Premiere date: May 12, 1957

Built according to the patterns of a fairy tale, the play "The Man with the Bag" benefits from a mythical structure, hidden in the frames of everyday life. The modest archivist Chirică sees a hidden order in the course of things and awaits the event that will transform the world around him. His profound intuition is directed towards the racehorse Pharaoh V, considered by everyone to be the "king of the worlds". For this reason, Chirică becomes the target of general ridicule, is fired and abandoned by his wife, Ana, who runs away with Nichita, one of the archivist's childhood friends. Like a modern Don Quixote, Chirică firmly believes in his ideal, even proving to be a passionate believer in the absolute who wants everything or nothing: "Nene, ori-ori". The course of events brings a total reversal of the situation, in which the man and the donkey are linked by the same destiny: Pharaoh V becomes the great winner of an important race and the attitude of the entire city towards Chirică changes radically: the mocker becomes an enlightened one, almost a saint. Astonishment turns into misunderstanding: "Who are you? What kind of man are you if you see what we cannot see?".

Ion Vartic believes that "through the transformations and spiritual enlightenments that it reveals on stage, comedy The man with the donkey It falls within the realm of expressionist theatre, but also contains premonitory accents of the future theatre of the absurd." (Analytical dictionary of Romanian literary works, coord. Ion Pop, Cluj-Napoca, House of the Science Book, 2007).

Distribution:

Chirica:  Dorel Urlățeanu
Varlam:  Misu Vladimir
Nikita:   Zacharias Volbea
Anna:  Lulu Popescu, Doina Urlăţeanu
General Inspectorate:  Constantin Simionescu
The man with ideas:  Radu Reisel
The horse's owner:  Aurel Decu, Ioan Pater
The Provincial:  Grig Schiţcu
The owner of the house:  Valentin Avrigeanu
School principal:  Septimiu Pop, Jean Sandulescu
Archivist's help:  Serban Bogdan, Gheorghe Vilceanu
The high school student:  Al.Mitea
Fira:  Sanda Ghiculescu-Pana, Doina Ioja Vasiu
An officer:  Eugen Tugulea 
An old woman:  Stefania Popescu
A delegate:  Marcel Segărceanu
A word:  George V. George
The youngest child:  Ion Simea
The eldest child:  Liviu Varadi

Technical director: Dalma Simionescu
Prompter: Agy Segărceanu