by Luigi Pirandello
Translation: R.A. Locusteanu

Stage version and artistic direction: Alexandru Colpacci
Scenography: architect Dan Jitianu
Set design assistant: Ligia Naghel, Dan Costinescu, Maria Haţeganu
Music and lyrics: Nicu Alifantis
Musical illustration: Cornel Pop
Premiere date: November 2, 1978

Alexandru Colpacci, the director of the memorable play that was the highlight of the 1978-1979 season, defined the show "Tonight is Improvisation" as a form of "collective confession." Indeed, the show allows the actors to show their own profession on stage, through a hallucinatory game in which theater is analyzed in its intimacy.

Right from the entrance to the hall, the audience discovers the actors in front of the curtain while they are doing their hair, putting on their make-up, in a word – doing everything that usually happens away from the eyes of the world. Thus, the first part of the show introduces the audience to the laboratory of theatrical creation, makes them co-authors of a whole series of experiments. The show, far from being the finished product we are used to, but the actors and the director are still groping their way. Modalities of psychological theatre, of folk theatre, of circus show, of pantomime, of oneiric theatre, of absurd theatre are tried. The tensions between the actors and the director Hinkfuss raise questions such as: who is the author of the show? What takes precedence in the acting construction? The text or the director's instructions? To what extent and how should the fusion of the actor and the character occur?

The second part of the play explores how the actors are totally subordinate to their characters and how art becomes life. The actors lose their own identity and end up faithfully embodying the members of the La Croce family or the group of officers. It is the only position in which they become truly authentic. Thus, the spectator is presented with the drama of Mommina, who is forced to marry, but in the new commitment finds a slow but certain death, caused by the morbid jealousy of her husband, Rico Verri.

Of course, this conflict is just a pretext and the "improvisation" mentioned in the title is just a convention to ingeniously illustrate the winding path from the pre-existing form represented by the dramatic text to the finished theatrical work.

Distribution:

Director Hinkfuss:  Liviu Rozorea
The old comic actor (Whistles):  Nicholas Thomas
Mrs. Ignazia (character actress):  Simona Constantinescu
Leading Actress (Mommina):  Cristina Schiopu
The main actor (Rico Verri):  Mircea Constantinescu
Totina:  Mariana Neagu
Desire:  Mariana Vasile
Nene:  Ileana Iurciuc
Pomarici:  Laurian Jivan
Nardi:  Ion Abrudan
Sarelli:  Radu Vaida
Cheekbones:  Nicolae Barosan
Mangini:  Marcel Popa
Singer:  Alla Tautu
A lady:  Doina Urlățeanu
Opera singer:  Anca Miere Chirilă
Consumers:  Grig Schitcu, Eugen Harizomenov, Ion Martin
The candy seller:  Florence Manea
A young man:  Dimitrios Stefanidis
Children:  Anca and Lioara Bradu

Technical director: Marioara Goina
Prompter: Dimitrios Stefanidis
Lighting: Vasile Blejan
Sound: Dorel Olea

Show distinguished with:
-ATM Award for scenography, 1978, (Dan Jitianu)
-the award for the most homogeneous band
-Female Performance Award (Cristina Şchiopu)
-the male performance award (Liviu Rozorea) at the Festival of the Art of the Contemporary Actor in Dialogue with the Audience, 2nd edition, Satu Mare, 1979