Born in 1967, Ronald Schimmelpfennig, once a good and persistent collaborator of the great director Thomas Ostermeier, is considered by critics to be the symbolic dramatist of Germany today.

If I remember correctly, the first stop of his work in Romania took place during a play-reading included in the International Theater Festival of 2003. Workshop which took place at that time under the auspices of the Theater named after Andriy Muresanu from Sfantu George. It was read then arabian night, a work which, according to its translator Viktor Skoradec, is characterized by “an alchemical proportion between transparency and imagination, between dramatic technique and poetry.”

The play, tested on the stage, also brought pleasure (when I say this, I mean first of all the play staged by the then very young Radu Alexander Nika on the stage of the German section of the National Theater Radu Stanka of Sibiu), also caused disappointment, if not disaster, in the whole law. I prefer not to mention the latter. How much of them were the majority, I asked myself in the content of the chronicle published in the Oradean magazine Family unless we somehow encounter a “false good work”.

It is certain that since then the works of the German playwright have become a constant presence in our repertoires, they have tempted directors of all generations, from the already patriarch Alexandra Dabia to Teodor-Cristian Popescu (he even had relapses), from Ioana Petre in Catinca Drăgănescu.

Translated by the aforementioned Ioana Petre Golden Dragon shortly after it appeared on the market (2012), he put it on the stage of the Theater named after minion from the capital. Catinca Drăgănescu rediscovered the text sometime in 2019, well, safely, without artistic mistakes, mounted it in the Theater Andriy Muresanu by Sfântu Gheorghe and I opened the show at the end of April in the year of grace 2022. On the occasion of the broadcast online, on a digital platform. Visually, a relatively good record was used, but not completely accurate K regarding sound capture. Please, nobody and nothing is perfect in this world.

Golden Dragon this is a sad story (another one) about migration, about the exploitation of immigrants from Asia who came to Germany semi-legally, about the tragic fate of two young Chinese (brother and sister) who died in dramatic and pathetic circumstances.

He, because of the instability of medical care, she, because of the violence she was subjected to at the hands of the man with whom she spent her days. The work is very similar Katzelmacher, a 1969 film by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. as well as the play and show of the same name staged by Eugene Ebelianu at the German State Theater in Timisoara. Where the very young actor Nico Berger plays a big role.

dragonGold reminded me of arabian night for at least two reasons.

From the point of view of the text, we are again dealing with “the alchemical proportion between clarity and imagination, between dramatic technique and poetry.” With a mixture of dream, trance and tragic reality. The whole story takes place in the space of a building that has relatively many rooms where they live day to day tot = a type of people whose life, far from happy, is summarized in small stories, the vast majority of them transcribed in a symbolic way.

On the first floor of the building in question, there is a Chinese-Thai-Vietnamese fast food restaurant, where five Chinese people work. And since there are many orders, they are forced to become living robots. And that they no longer have time to care for each other.

At first they ignore the increasingly sharp toothache of one of them, then they try to solve it in the most primitive and cheapest way. The poor little Chinese bleeds more and more, loses his life due to hemorrhage, dies without ever finding his sister, who also left for Europe in search of a better life, but in turn suffers an equally absurd death. The removed tooth falls on the flight attendant’s plate, travel all the way to China.

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