A Lost Letter... for eternity!

I receive a phone call from the beloved actor Valentin Teodosiu: Eugen, you weren't in Bucharest for the premiere. We're coming to Cluj and inviting you on November 10th. I had seen, 10 years ago, at the Comedy Theater, an excellent staging by Alex. Dabija and I wrote the review. I think: What else can you bring new, besides some great actors, to the most performed play?! Sometimes we are mistaken..

Although there were better times when much was done for Romania (even in Caragiale's time!), the eternal great dilemma remains: Who do we vote for?! More acute than ever! Only Nenea Iancu enjoys the unanimous vote of Romanians!

The premiere exactly 141 years ago, TN Bucharest, November 25, 1884, had great public success, but not with those "targeted" who harassed him so much (and invented lawsuits!) until he had to "flee", for his safety, to 1,700km, in Berlin. Is it different today?!

The success of some valuable stagings shows that, on the banks of the Dâmbovița, not much has changed, and worse: the Caragiale characters are babies compared to the current ones. If someone were to clone Trahanache, Tipătescu, Cațavencu & Co. (all with difficult baccalaureate exams for real from 12 subjects and real doctorates in Paris and Berlin) and they were to meet the similar fauna of today, they would wrinkle their noses in horror and kick them out the door!

Here is the "scandalous" team: direction / Toma Enache acting: Valentin Teodosiu Zaharia Trahanache, Monica Davidescu / Zoe Trahanache, Aurelian Temișan / Ștefan Tipătescu, Marius Rizea / Ghiță Pristanda, Ovidiu Cuncea / Nae Cațavencu, Claudiu Bleonț / Dandanache, Dan Istrate / Brânzovenescu, Emanuel Varga / Farfuridi, Cosmin Vijeu / The Drunk Citizen.

The suggestive minimal decor by Vladimir Turturică is subtly ingenious and in detail: the facade of Tipătescu's house has the shape of an open envelope where we all enter and exit: an eternal glorious pyramid dedicated to the jokers from whom we cannot escape: the mouth of Dante's Hell!

The booths of "VOTE WITH REDS / WITH BLUES"), i.e. ejusdem farinae / the same chaff, is not only homegrown, but still reminds us of the valid West / Blue – East / Red division, demonstrating that this little country, poor Romania! (Cațavencu) hasn't escaped the international swindlers either!

The booths are on wheels and spin with the drunken Citizen, the others & we exclaiming in unison, dizzy, with director Enache: "At one point, we all ask ourselves who I'm voting for?!" The fact that there are no walls shows that "everything is seen / is known"!

The speaker's platform has the shape of an immense stamp in the shape of a phallus which suggests to the electorate: If you don't want us, we want you! Shut up, because we'll... Retro furniture for today's neo-enriched malagambists.

Doina Levintza's original costumes perfectly complement the retro-modern scenography, highlighting the characters, creating typological models themselves. The protagonists, the politicians, have ridiculous black and white checkered clothes like circus clowns or in the surrealist spectacles á rebour / backwards from the famous roaring twenties, 1920, in Paris or Berlin.

Only Zoe is a superb exception with the chromatic fairy tale of the splendid outfits – message: woman brings feelings, love and beauty into this violently patriarchal world ruled with aggressive cold reason that has become irrationally-destructive! Her female characters, beyond some flaws (due to the world of men) are truly human!

Fănică loves her and is loved by Zoe, which we no longer find today! The political-erotic relationships between men and women are consumed on the back seat of luxurious cars and in offices guarded by Gorgon-like Cerberuses.

Only the police chief, Ghiță Pristanda, is half-and-half with his red uniform and dark-brown trousers (some coprological allusion?) like a servile chameleon of anyone in power: Lick their boots and eat everything!

The drunk citizen is dressed like many on the street: gray coat, like their life, and striped trousers of a semi-prisoner locked within the borders of Romania! The vests have banknotes with Caragiale: the fateful autochthonous currency from which we can no longer escape.

Decorations and costumes: pure refinement!

The action being known, we emphasize special moments and interpretations. The bubbly-original comedy of Valentin Teodosiu stands out (I wrote in the chronicle of the Dabija staging): he equals the classic Giugaru. His invention: he knows about Zoe's connection with Fănică, but, a savvy merchant, he profits fully.

He delights us with his duplicitous play: Look, I'm the "naive" one who knows - so what! He clarifies it when he kisses Fănică on the forehead, saying We are old friends of eight years. Others are scoundrels! with a funny-diabolical grimace of a slyboots!

Zoe, the positive character, enjoys the complex, well-dosed and varied play of Monica Davidescu: she goes through all possible states showing what a woman suffers to defend and save her love in the harsh world: she is gentle, lascivious, firm, never cunning, being the only honest and direct one!

She tells everyone with all the courage of the lioness who defends her dear cub (and Fănică): Whoever fights with Cațavencu, fights with me! She has many powerful scenes, but the memorable one is the invention / the supreme trick of women: If we don't do this, 3 Fănică, I will die! She provocatively stretches lasciviously on the sofa holding a lit candle on her chest! Mission: Impossible?! Not with Zoe!

We also remember the moment when he jumps on Fănică's back and leads him like a naughty horse, who needs a jockey to show him the way to victory: a tribute over time to Toma Caragiu's performance in this role.

Marius Rizea / Ghiță Pristanda has a presence that reminds one of Birlic: the world laughs as he appears on stage. The actor with a native comic in every cell was noticed from the beginning; Best Actor Award at the Young Actor Gala, Mangalia, 2001. No wonder: he graduated from the class of master Dem Rădulescu, 1988.

Any small gesture - drops the obedient waiter's napkin, brings glasses and champagne, exits or enters the stage, cries, whistles, spits... - is magnetizing, charged with a lot of humor: Chapeau!

Ovidiu Cuncea's Cațavencu (it's hard to compete with the classic geniuses of Sică Alexandrescu: here, Ion Talianu) is subtly (most) updated in his vision and may have a real model in a big-shot politician.

Cosmin Vijeu also has a very high bar in the memorable, intoxicated Costache Antoniu. He manages (it's hard to get out of the character's parameters) to offer us the (alcoholic) perfume of a likeable, dazed man, more by history than by alcohol. Ingenious trick with 2-3 hats, the masculine version of Another hat, the same Mary: the ordinary man is forced to constantly "adapt" in the merciless Balkan world if he wants to survive!

Claudiu Bleonț creatively differentiates himself from the classic Dandanache Radu Beligan and, in a clown costume, delights us with the character he proposes: a buffoon at the court of despotic kings who knows all the ins and outs, takes advantage and beats them with their own weapons.

Other effective actions that pleasantly animated the spectators: the orators transform them into an audience, each camp distributes red / blue flags in the first row and mobilizes the hall to shout at the opposition Thieves! Thieves! How much truth...

Aurelian Temișan proposes a (too) serious Fănică, full of himself, correctly interpreted, without leaving the audience the memory of a special character. The couple Dan Istrate / Brânzovenescu, Emanuel Varga / Farfuridi is a slapstick pastiche of Stan & Bran on the same line as Mircea Diaconu-Dem Rădulescu in the Liviu Ciulei staging, the '80s and that one somewhat forced.

Finally, a critique: apart from a few pale "lizards" in the present, updates are missing (almost all productions here): Does Anyone Fear... Woolf?! Before 1990 there was a lot of courage with immense risks! Today, no risk – no fun!

Director Toma Enache managed to offer, with his team, another sparkling version of the eternal comedy intelligently compressed into a single act, and the generous applause rewarded him at length.

The actors gave autographs on the elegant Show Notebook (it's no longer done in Cluj) and Valentin Teodosiu on his superb, highly successful book (5th edition!): A clown for eternity.

And we, Romanians, are left with a Caragiale for eternity...