Play in two parts by Alexandru Mirodan

Artistic director: Ion Deloreanu
Assistant director: George Pintilescu
Decor: Nagy Sándor
Costumes: Eliza Popescu
Premiere date: March 6, 1964

„"Has it ever happened to you that, opening the volume on page 72, you came across a poorly written chapter, or even completely wrong, but which was still part of a good book?"”

A play with comic and lyrical inserts, "The Night is a Good Counselor" discusses moral issues such as real or imagined guilt, forgiveness of one's fellow human beings, and the ability to distinguish right from wrong (the theme of lucid vision and "immoral myopia"). According to the author, the plot starts from a real case, presented in an article in the newspaper "Scânteia", about a young worker who, released from prison, encounters the superficial and rigid attitude of those around him, but manages, through honest work, to regain his place among people.

This worker receives in Al. Mirodan's play the image of the young Alion, imprisoned for seven months for a fight in which he defended the name of the girl he loved. Apart from this event that persists on him like a stigma, Alion is portrayed as a hero: although lacking the support of a family, he embodies respect for the values of work (he worked as a volunteer and was awarded the Order of Labor, second class), knowledge (as a student at the evening school, he won a mathematics Olympiad) and self-sacrifice (he saved a three-year-old child from drowning). Blind to all these merits, engineer Anatol, head of the design service at the Viișoara Combine, refuses to accept him in his department, considering him simply a rascal and a scoundrel. When Alion asks for the hand of his daughter, Ileana, Anatol's anger knows no bounds. Getting behind the wheel in a state of rage bordering on unconsciousness, Anatol hits Alion with his car. Miraculously recovering, Alion denies, in the presence of the neurologist and the Militia lieutenant, any guilt on Anatol's part, citing a passing illness. To complete the hallucinatory events and successive revelations of the same night, the lieutenant brings to light the fact that the girl for whose honor the fight in the past arose was Ileana Anatol herself.

Distribution:

Anatole:  Dorel Urlățeanu
Ileana:  Aurora Simionica, Marilena Negru
Ceteras:  George Pintilescu
Alion:  George Simonca, Ion Abrudan
Doctor:  Alla Tautu
Militia officer:  Ilie Iliescu
The neurologist:  John Martin

Technical director: Elena Varlam
Prompter: Agy Segărceanu
Sound: Dorel Olea