Comedy in three acts by J.B. Priestley
Translation: Sima Zamfir and C. Grigoriu

Directed by: Otto Szombati Gille
Set design: Vilmos Bölöni
Costumes: Maria Precup
Premiere date: April 6, 1995

The action of the comedy "The Scandalous Affair of Mr. Kettle and Mrs. Moon" begins on a monotonous and rainy Monday, in a dull space, seething with prejudice – the English town of Brickmill. "In this place suffocated by conformity and the rancidity of a feigned existentialism, Mr. George Kettle, a bank clerk, "inspired" by a foreign voice, to the astonishment of the other townspeople and acquaintances, suddenly breaks with the feigned good manners and the snobbish social rhetoric, assuming the risk of being himself, which is interpreted by others as drunkenness, illness or madness. The "morality" of the social mechanism begins to creak at such manifestations, not delaying in exerting its pressure, so that the wayward sheep can be brought back into the flock. In this place hostile to any change, hostile to any attempt to highlight the personality, the bank clerk nevertheless finds a partner in "heresy", in the person of Mrs. Moon, whose life and love he is ready to suffocate for the same reasons. And as great ideals begin with small, even banal, gestures, the solidarity in breaking with pretense and the social training of the two begins with a strange drumbeat, at the same time an element of defiance, but also of irremediable compromise. The other characters are, to a greater or lesser extent, nothing more than voluntary "pistons" of social pressure through which the assumed individuality of the two is sought to be re-melted into the common indistinction. And, as a climax to the non-acceptance of any "compromise", the collectivity, through its brave (and not a few) representatives, even appeals to a doctor so that Mr. Kettle's obedient self can be restored, through a hypnosis treatment. Although it seems to have succeeded, the hilarious hypnosis operation turned out to be, in the end, just useless gymnastics, a sign that if one has the will, the individual can break the social corset, to fulfill oneself in freedom and love, feelings whose grammar is always fulfilled individually, never in groups.„ (Ioan F. Pop)

Distribution:

George Kettle:  Dorin Presecan
Mrs. Twigg:  Mariana Vasile
Monica Twigg:  Elvira Platon Rîmbu
Hardacre, city councilor:  Petre Panait
Commissioner Street:  Ion Abrudan
Delia Moon:  Mariana Presecan
Henry Moon:  Daniel Vulcu
Mr. Clinton:  Marcel Popa
Dr. Grenock:  Nicolae Barosan

Technical director: Florin Popescu
Prompter: Iuliana Chelu
Lights: Iosif Balogh
Musical illustration and sound design: Sorin Domide