Text taken from familymagazine.ro / author: Alexandru Jurcan

The premiere of the end of the year 2024 at the Regina Maria Theater in Oradea: Elif and the rain by Sami Ibrahim, directed by Alex Ianăși. A text about the condition of the always "illegal" immigrant, who is only worth as much as he can work, in a perfidious bureaucratic system. Elif is a woman who ends up in an economic dictatorship, preferring utopian tendencies that distance her from the fangs of reality. Her daughter, Lily, has a different perspective, beyond her mother's stories, managing to understand the cruel truth and their precarious condition, with a cynicism specific to her age.

Sami Ibrahim is a young London writer, in full artistic rise. Director Alex Ianăși, a recent graduate with a degree in Theatre Directing, already has an aesthetic and artistic credo. He wants the audience to "connect emotionally with Elif's problem, to strip themselves of the walls of everyday life and, like the actors on stage, to be sensitive, vulnerable people". The set design is by Tinatin Gobejishvili (originally from Georgia). An austere setting, dominated by multifunctional suitcases, a symbol of multiple departures. They can become a wall, on which images are projected, but they can also be dimly lit buildings. Sometimes a window can open, carved into the body of the miniature blocks.

At the beginning, a group of… pilgrims appears. Cloaks and hoods, suitcases and umbrellas. Statuary groups. At both ends of the stage there are microphones for those who tell the story. Omniscient, empathetic narrators. In fact, the entire show is built in Brechtian style, with a kind of narrators/directors, who sometimes say „stop”, „restart”, „no spoilers”, „repeat”. This hint of meta-theater is present from beginning to end, removing any possibility of melodrama. There is, therefore, a direct address to the audience, plus an acknowledgement of the fact that the people performing are actors and… not the characters they play. One by one, they take off their cloaks and become other and other characters. Excellent scene with the marching in a circle, with the queue at… the programming. Kafka is always present: they search for hours for the „recorder of the recorder”. The king, bureaucracy, taxes, papers, delays, in a cruel wait. From the asides we reach the dialogue. A line often passes from one character to another. Ovidiu Iloc's music also includes the sounds of water flowing through pipes. The epic flow adopts minimalist solutions. A memorable scene: the confrontation between mother and daughter. Anda Tămășanu (Elif) is credible, between courage, dignity, fragility, hope. Carina Bunea (Lily) initially conveys a childhood innocence, quickly invaded by the revelation of her marginal condition. George Dometi (the owner's son) manages to reproduce shyness, cowardice, resignation, compassion in different registers. Always self-confident, magnetic and often volcanic is Ioana Dragoș Gajdo (the owner).

A show from the social sphere, with satirical accents, extremely narrative, with successful visuals, but a little too long. During the applause, the spectators seemed confused. Probably because of the metatheatrical style. For me, however, it meant a well-articulated experiment, which enhances stylistic versatility.