Text taken from Family Magazine / author: Alexandru Jurcan

The following situation is becoming classic: children gone to other countries, sick single parents, benevolent neighbors, foreigners paid to take care of them... Here is an extremely current, hot, painful theme. Simona Mihuțiu, a renowned oncologist from Oradea, addressed such a problem in the play Speranța nu aucă nievești con elevatul.

Oradea, January 12, 2025. I see the play at the Regina Maria Theater, Transilvania Hall. Directed by: Toni Nica. A great challenge at his directorial debut: to create a viable, truthful universe, with humans and androids. Simona Mihuțiu has been writing literature for several years. The 2019 novel Window to Tomorrow, an overwhelming love story, was very successful among young people.

Before the show begins, you are greeted by a warm, familiar interior: bed, carpet, lamp, television, bookcase. Oana Cernea's convincing scenography proposes a striking contrast with human suffering. That of Mrs. Mia, the sick woman cared for by Vetuța, who speaks in a peasant way and evokes a necessary humor for a counterbalance that eliminates a possible tearful tone. In this role, actress Adela Lazăr is fully convincing, in an empathetic interpretation. The revelation remains Mirela Niță Lupu, who plays Mia. Excellent robotic twitches, a versatile rictus, tortured movements, often censored pain. From bed she ends up in a wheelchair, then in an armchair. A true adventure of tragic senescence. Man: evolution and involution. Because Vetuța can no longer take care of her, because her absent son lives somewhere far away, Mia will be cared for by two androids, specially programmed for such a mission (played by Georgia Căprărin and David Constantinescu – difficult, unusual roles, assumed with refined talent). Their thinking is analytical, the relationship becomes rigid, tiring, humiliating. Empathy is removed by a sudden alienation. The sick man is treated mechanically, without warmth, thrown into a nightmarish solitude. To collaborate with the Robotic Center means to arrive on the planet Kafka. You always hear: "Our company... our generation cannot be corrected". It is perfection itself. The androids parrot tiresome truisms, flat definitions. How can they understand the expression "leave it alone!", other than "leave it alone", thus throwing water on the ground?! Either way, we will eventually see some kind of reconciliation of the two worlds. Can the two robots be humanized?

Let's say you have a child and maybe you're too protective. Or indifferent, permissive, possessive, anxious. Either way, on the wrong path of education. You forget what the Ugandans used to say, that a child is like a vine: if he's not educated, it will grow into your head. Or you're too perfectionist and you suffocate the child. What does it matter? Failure has occurred, the being is lost. Then you console yourself and turn to artificial intelligence? You replace the child with a robot. In 2018, the English playwright Thomas Eccleshare wrote a sustainable text on this topic, absolutely necessary, with recognizable situations – Instructions for Correct Assembly, concerned with the idea of... programming someone. You buy the product, assemble it, operate the remote control. You replace the failed child with a robot that obeys, listens to you. How long? From human demolition, another inevitable erosion will occur.

Returning to our show, I believe that towards the end there was a kind of dilution, towards explanatory and tear-jerking, but we are dealing with a play of compelling universal relevance, and the director manages to ensure a solid emotional dynamic, in a well-articulated, imposing show.