Crime comedy by Robert Thomas

Artistic direction, stage version and sets: Eugen Harizomenov
Assistant director: Mirela Niţă Lupu
Costumes: Amalia Judea
Premiere date: October 7, 1999

„"Is the Assassin Among Us? (Eight Women)" is an ingenious police farce, punctuated by spectacular theatrical strokes, but also endowed with a visible satirical dimension.

Marcel, a seemingly caring family man, around whom eight women from successive generations gravitate, with greater or lesser importance, is found one morning in his room with a knife stuck in his back. From that moment on, the room is locked until the police arrive and a spontaneous investigation begins in the isolated house, in which each of the eight becomes, in turn, detective and suspect. In this sarabande of suspicions, difficult relationships, surprising and uncomfortable secrets, hidden character traits and illicit feelings are revealed. Accusations and explanations are chained together, while other complications come to enhance what author Robert Thomas understands and cultivates by the phrase "comic suspense": the gate is blocked, the telephones are cut off, the dogs are poisoned, the car is broken, the gun and the life-saving medicine have disappeared from their place.

„"A detective story without a corpse is not a detective story. And the more... dead the corpse, the better" (rule 7 of the 18 mandatory rules of the genre, formulated by Van Dine and applied to the detective story). However, the denouement of the play "Is the Assassin Among Us?" blatantly contradicts this rule, because Marcel is not dead, but has staged the entire story together with his daughter, Catherine, in order to see the true situation among those close to him. Exasperated that he is deceived and lied to, Marcel definitively leaves the coalition of eight women in his entourage with Catherine.

Distribution:

Grandmother:  Simona Constantinescu
Madame Chanel:  Mariana Vasile
Pierrette:  Mona Erhan
Louise:  Paula Chirila 
Augustine:  Ileana Iurciuc
Gaby:  Elvira Platon Rîmbu 
Suzanne:  Angela Tanko
Catherine:  Mariana Presecan
Marcel:  George Voinese

Technical director: Ofelia Fîrte
Prompter: Florence Szabo
Lighting: Iosif Balogh, Sorin Precup
Sound: Sorin Domide