Last Stop in Paradise
Category: PlaysNational Television Theatre
“Last Stop in Paradise”/ Ultima haltă în paradis
Director Alexandru Tociescu staged the play for the Romanian Public Television staged the play in 2002. The production was presented one year later in the 13th edition of the I.L. Caragiale National Theatre Festival, in the TV Theatre section. Later on it became a “best TV theatre production” nominee to the prizes awarded by the Romanian Association of Theatre Artists.
Directed and adapted by Alexandru Tocilescu
Edited by Doina Teodoru
Costumes: Ion Olaru
Casting:
Mitică – Florin Piersic
The nurse – Mariana Dănescu
The doctor – Florina Cercel
Ionel – George Ivaşcu
Luminiţa Erga, Mirela Oprişor, Oana Tatu, Georgiana Purcaru, Luminiţa Roşu
„I have said it on and on that I not even interested in texts awarded in competitions, unless they make me feel like turning them in performances. And I am saying it with all the moral authority of a stage director which a long career, half of it meaning staging of Romanian plays. The truth it, I admit, that I staged poor plays too, but I no longer want to save such texts. Playwrights must save themselves by writing truly challenging plays. I read the text by Valentin Nicolau and I thought it was very well written. Some of it reminded by of the liveliness and charm of the plays authored by Tudor Popescu. There are lively and colorful characters who bring life on stage. This is why I asked the actors and the TV production team as well to focus on what is true and natural, on life seen from close, like in a documentary. I left them enough room for improvisation, for the sake of the natural, so that we could avoid pre-established things and fakes. This is better for the rhythm too and for the tension in a performance. (Director Alexandru Tocilescu interviewed by Ioan Parhon, România liberă, October 3, 2002)
„One force of nature gets unbound in Studio 1 of the Romanian television, it dances, it struggles and it plays with a frail young man, scared of what is happening to him. Somewhere behind on a wheelchair there sits the owner of two lively eyes carefully watching, unable to hold back his smile. This stage was played in all truth, expressing more tension than I managed to describe. It happened last Wednesday afternoon in the place mentioned above. The TV team is working hard at the making of the first TV theatre production after five long years. We can call this an event. This is the first time when Alexandru Tocilescu, undeniable a top stage director in Romania, is making a TV theatre production, staging “The Last Stop in Paradise” by Valentin Nicolau. It is also the first time when the director is working with a great Romanian actor who hasn’t been playing for years now, that is Florin Piersic. (…) He is the force I have just mentioned above, he has missed playing theatre so much that you have the impression that he can move mountains if the director asks him to give it some of his fullness. Therefore the hospital ward represented in the studio by designer Ion Olaru is just a piece of cake for him. But for the time being he is teaching his ward made how to dance. (…) The National Television Theatre is standing all chances to hit the jackpot this fall to come up with a real pick both for the audience, who is longing for true TV performances by remarkable artists, and for theatre experts.(Fragment from “Alexandru Tocilescu and Florin Piersic make a ‘stop’ in Romanian Television”, Adevărul, September 14, 2002)
„This play is a genuine remake of the Don Juan myth against the background which the city of Bucharest offers. Don Juan is now embodied in the person of Mitica, who is the expression of some local habits. As for the background, it is genuine too, legendary too and it bears an inviting philosophical dimension. This is the metaphor of a wearied space, for here Mitica experiences the remembrance of his fame and also a new beginning. This is done through the transfer of his experiences onto a possible future disciple. This original Sganarel who accompanies Don Juan here is some common Johnny, eager to learn the art of seduction and the way to success from his master. The love initiation ritual is thus turned into a touching lesson on and for life, which the old man transfers onto the youngster, together with his uncommon vital energy.
Apart from the complex portraying of the two, we can notice a ceaseless oscillation between the tragic and the comic, which makes an important dimension of the text. Humorously and cheerfully, Mitica and Ionel fancy enthralling love affairs, but these are always shadowed by tragic illusions. Life itself is a charming illusion. But death, which is approaching the aged Don Juan, is painfully true. (…)
As for the excellent team mentioned above, the first to be remarked is stage director Alexandru Tocilescu. And this is due not only to the fact that this is his first television experience, in which he is proving as masterful as on stage, but also to his exceptional artistic spirit, which makes an admirable subtle and poetical performance. (…) And due to actor Florin Piersic we forget that this is about some common bacchanal, about some nice womanizer, and we get to pay attention to his inner world, to his vast life experience, which has now reached the time for confessions, as the other life is drawing near.” (Doina Papp, TV Theatre Premieres, November 19, 2002)