During the 1956–1957 theatre season, Barbu Ștefănescu Delavrancea’s play Apus de soare was staged at the National Theatre in Bucharest, directed by Marietta Sadova and starring the actor George Calboreanu. Although he had played the role of Hamlet in his youth and later that of King Lear, his fame was to remain inextricably linked to the figure of Stephen the Great, with whom he seemed to have become one. Indeed, 1957 marked the 500th anniversary of the prince’s accession to the throne. During the 1956–1957 theatre season, Soviet occupation troops were still present in our country, history was being falsified, and it was only after the suicide of the sinister Soviet sympathiser Mihai Roller that it became possible to say anything even remotely true about our medieval past. After Stalin’s death in 1953, when work on the Danube–Black Sea Canal had been halted as part of the ‘thaw’ – synonymous with de-Stalinisation – there was a easing of repression, but also a tentative and cautious return to certain things dear to the Romanian people. This included the staging, at the National Theatre in Bucharest, of Delavrancea’s play Apus de soare (Sunset). People who lived through that era recalled how, after Ștefan’s final monologue – “Moldova is neither mine nor yours, but belongs to your descendants’ descendants” – the applause would last – with the entire audience on their feet – for almost ten minutes.
Even after the suppression of the anti-communist armed uprising in Hungary, Delavrancea’s play remained on the bill at the National Theatre, which at that time had two auditoriums: one in Amzei Square, the other – the main one – on Calea Victoriei, in the Majestic Passage, in an imposing building which today bears the name Odeon Theatre.
The 1956–57 season, directed by Marietta Sadova, was the first since the Second World War, as the expanding communist forces sought to avoid displays of patriotism and any affirmation of ties to the national past.
The director of the production had a remarkable life story of her own. Born in the Sibiu region in the final years of the nineteenth century, bearing the surname Bârsan, and married to the writer and great theatre figure Ion Marin Sadoveanu – from whom she would separate after ten years of marriage – Marietta Sadova was an iconic figure of the interwar Romanian intelligentsia. An actress, drama teacher and director, who remarried Haig Acterian, a brilliant Romanian theatre scholar of Armenian origin, Marietta Sadova was also awarded the Order of Labour, a major Communist honour, and thrown into prison after the same regime had allowed her to travel to Paris, in that same year, 1956, where she had met Emil Cioran and Mircea Eliade, who, like her husband, had been part of the brilliant interwar generation. One particular scene that took place following the pardon of political prisoners in 1964 is particularly noteworthy. A former teacher of mine, who happened to be visiting the director’s home at the time, was introduced to Petre Țuțea. As he was leaving, Marietta Sadova said to him: ‘Please bear in mind that you have shaken hands with the most intelligent Romanian since Nae Ionescu’.
In 1956, Patriarch Justinian, having heard of the impact of this play and the vibrant displays of Romanian national spirit it generated despite the harshness of the times, went to see it. The main box at the Odeon Theatre – at that time the main auditorium of the National Theatre in Bucharest – had been reserved for him, and he arrived accompanied by Father Nițișor Cazacu, his secretary, and two or three other clergymen. Gheorghiu-Dej also used to sit in that box when he attended performances; the last one he attended, in the autumn of 1964, was Richard III, starring the actor George Vraca.
It is difficult to date Patriarch Justinian’s attendance at a performance of Sunset at the National Theatre in Bucharest. I am inclined to believe that this visit took place in September, October or November 1956, as the anti-communist uprising in Hungary broke out at the end of October that same year, and on 15 November the Christmas Fast began, meaning an Orthodox hierarch could not go to the theatre after that date. Of course, the Patriarch could have gone to the theatre in 1957 as well, before the Lenten Fast. That is not the most important point. What is striking is that, at the end of the performance, Patriarch Justinian made a point of congratulating George Calboreanu. Led into the great actor’s dressing room, the latter, upon seeing Justinian, fell to his knees, exclaiming: “Whaaaat?! The Patriarch of Romania has come into a clown’s cage?!”
Patriarch Justinian was so moved by this gesture that, late that same evening, he invited the great actor to dinner with the entire cast. Several actors got into the Patriarch’s Cadillac, inherited from his predecessor, Nicodim, whilst others travelled in taxis hailed from the taxi rank at University Square. At the dinner hosted by the Patriarch, which was attended by members of the play’s cast including Elvira Godeanu (Mrs Maria) and Radu Beligan (who played Dr Șmil), Eugenia Popovici and Gheorghe Cozorici, were served by Deacon Bartolomeu Anania, from whom I learnt of this episode. At one point, as they were switching from white wine to red, the young deacon hesitated to change Calboreanu’s wine. Bringing another glass, he placed it next to the one containing white wine and poured from the red one. Calboreanu tasted the red wine and looked at the deacon who was serving at the table. The deacon asked him: ‘Which of the wines would you prefer, Master?’ ‘Both, Father, both!’
Also in the 1950s, Patriarch Justinian went to attend two symphonic concerts held at the Athenaeum. At one of these, held after Stalin’s death in 1954 or ’55, the Patriarch was accompanied by his secretary and Father Anania, and the most prominent box had been reserved for them. Music by Bach was performed, with the orchestra conducted by a highly renowned figure, even in Europe: George Georgescu. At that time, unlike literature or the visual arts, symphonic music passed more easily through the filters of censorship. Consequently, during that decade, the St Matthew Passion could be performed in Bucharest, although it was listed in the programme under its original title: ‘Matthäus-Passion’.
The Patriarch asked Father Anania to accompany him to the Athenaeum, given his interest in music. In 1952, before Father Sandu Tudor retired to Sihăstria Monastery to become a monk, he parted with his His Master’s Voice gramophone and his extensive record collection – consisting of classical music records – selling it to Father Anania. In fact, private listening sessions would sometimes take place in the young deacon’s home at the Archdiocese of Bucharest, attended by lay intellectuals as well. Patriarch Justinian asked his deacon (who was also the librarian of the Patriarchal Palace) for a book on Bach, and on the day of the concert – particularly at lunch – the conversation revolved entirely around this composer. That evening, at the end of the concert, George Georgescu came into the Patriarch’s box and greeted him most respectfully. A discussion about Bach ensued between the conductor and Justinian, which astonished Father Anania, as ‘the Patriarch spoke like a man who, all his life, had listened to nothing but music composed by Bach’.