They simply left religious symbols out. In ?89 we did Titus Popovici?s ?Inheritance? about Prince Mircea the Elder, except that political propaganda renamed the poor fellow as Mircea the Great. Traian was cast in the role of a young boy from the countryside who climbs all the way to the top and gets to be the Archbishop of Wallachia. The play ends with Mircea?s death and Traian who was supposed to say a prayer and give absolution to the departing soul. You can?t imagine just how many strings Titus Popovici had to pull ? and he really could pull quite a few ? to let the show end with the wholesome sign of the cross the Archbishop was supposed to make.

The auditions usually took place before a larger audience. Working for the National Theatre Company we were under the direct control of the Ministry of Culture. It?s hard to say whether it was good or bad, especially if I were to think of the theatres that were supervised by the City Halls. Their situation was far worse because after auditions the go-ahead was given by lower ranking municipality servants who were the lapdogs of their seniors. So they were twice as rigorous as they should normally have been. Our auditors were the people in the driving seats of the ministry, starting with the infamous Dumitru Popescu. The board tended to become all the more high-profile in the case of problematic texts. One such example was Camil Petrescu?s ?Procustus? Bed? which was auditioned no less than 32 times. Eventually the only solution was to insert an explanatory board among the elements of the set, saying something to the effect that the events did not actually make any reference to actual situations at present. So nobody would end with the far-fetched idea that the story had anything to do with our own situation. The note had to be written by the stage director. They were dead scared, weren?t sure what the powers that be would say about that show. Or the powers that be were no one else but Dumitru Popescu himself. The Godly Popescu as they dubbed him. He was the authorized mouthpiece of the Ceausescu couple.

The Ceausescu couple themselves weren?t much of a theatre-going couple. They attended the inauguration of the new National Theatre House, when that shameless piece of rubbish was put on for the grand event. It was one excerpt from Baranga?s ?Pathetic Symphony? about communist resistance fighters, plus the cherry on top of the cake ? two acts of Delavrancea?s ?Sundown?. The show was interrupted, coupé! They had also brought some audience as well, this time wearing civilian clothes. And they never since set foot in a theatre hall again. Or they never returned to the National Theatre.