O scrisoare pierdută
Ion Luca Caragiale
O scrisoare pierdută
Election time in a provincial Romanian town. The prefect Tipătescu has written a love letter to Zoe, the wife of his political ally Trahanache, and the letter has been lost — straight into the hands of Cațavencu, an ambitious rival who means to use it to win the nomination. Caragiale's comedy of blackmail, bluster and party politics is the most famous play in Romanian.
About the book
O scrisoare pierdută (A Lost Letter) was first performed at the National Theatre in Bucharest in November 1884. Its four acts take place in the days before an election in the capital of a mountain county, where the ruling party's local leaders — the prefect Ștefan Tipătescu, the venerable committee chairman Zaharia Trahanache and his wife Zoe — find themselves at the mercy of Nae Cațavencu, a newspaper owner holding a compromising letter. Around them Caragiale assembles a gallery of characters whose names have entered the Romanian language: the servile policeman Ghiță Pristanda, the pompous Farfuridi and Brânzovenescu, and the drunken Citizen who only wants to know whom he should vote for. Its satire of political hypocrisy has never gone out of date, and the play remains a fixture of Romanian schools and stages. This edition is the original Romanian text.
Characters
Ștefan Tipătescu — The county prefect
The prefect who wrote the compromising love letter to his ally's wife.
Zaharia Trahanache — Party committee chairman
The venerable chairman of the local party, Zoe's husband and Tipătescu's friend, endlessly calm and endlessly naïve.
Zoe Trahanache — Trahanache's wife
The recipient of the letter, determined to get it back at any price.
Nae Cațavencu — Opposition candidate
An ambitious lawyer and newspaper owner who finds the letter and uses it to blackmail his way to the nomination.
Ghiță Pristanda — Police chief
Tipătescu's servile policeman, who bends every rule for his superiors.
Farfuridi — Local party member
A pompous lawyer of the ruling party, famous for his tangled speeches.
Brânzovenescu — Local party member
Farfuridi's anxious partner in suspicion and intrigue.
Agamemnon Dandanache — Candidate from Bucharest
The doddering candidate sent from the capital, who turns out to be the cleverest blackmailer of all.
The drunken citizen — Voter
A tipsy voter who wanders through the play wanting only to know whom he should vote for.
About the author
Ion Luca Caragiale (1852–1912) was a Romanian playwright, short-story writer and journalist, widely regarded as the greatest dramatist in the Romanian language. Born near Ploiești, he worked as a prompter, journalist, teacher and civil servant, and was a member of the Junimea literary society alongside Mihai Eminescu and Ion Creangă. His comedies — O noapte furtunoasă, Conu Leonida față cu reacțiunea, D-ale carnavalului and above all O scrisoare pierdută — and his satirical sketches mock the vanity, jargon and political opportunism of the new Romanian middle class. He spent his last years in Berlin. The writer Mateiu Caragiale was his son.