A Stormy Night (, originally O noapte furtunoasă sau Numĕrul 9) is an 1878 comedy play by Ion Luca Caragiale, and widely seen as a major accomplishment in modern Romanian humor. It was Caragiale's debut as a dramatist, at age 26, after a period of writing for various newspapers—the same age and profession as those associated with the play's protagonist, Rică Venturiano. The work combines elements of farce, sex comedy, and political satire, being a public gesture whereby Caragiale emphasized his break with Romanian liberalism, which was at the time dominant in local political culture. Set in Dealul Spirii neighborhood (mahala), south-central Bucharest, A Stormy Night focuses on the nighttime intrusion of Venturiano, a liberal demagogue employed as a government clerk, into the townhouse of Dumitrache Titircă, embodying the more commercially successful layers of the liberal-voting petty bourgeoisie. Titircă's home is revealed to be the scene of an adulterous affair between his wife, Veta, and his assistant, Chiriac—though Caragiale scholars remain divided as to whether Dumitrache is entirely oblivious or a willing cuckold.
The play is rich with symbolism and comedy of language, aligned with the aesthetic values promoted by Junimea literary society and its conservative counterculture. Through Venturiano's lines, the author parodies republicanism and Romantic nationalism, while also taking on, and rendering ridicule, the Latinate spelling norms favored by extreme liberals; through Titircă and his henchmen, he settles scores with the Civic Guard, which he had come to see as a parasitical institution of the liberals' spoils system; through Veta and her sister Zița, he mocks the romantic-themed daydreaming and kitsch aspirations of middle-class housewives. A Stormy Night was first performed at the National Theater Bucharest, in January 1879, becoming extremely successful on its premiere. The original text, used for that production, had four acts; it was later shortened and modified by Caragiale (who probably maintained some of the changes operated, without his consent, by manager Ion Ghica).
Both the original version and the definitive text were topics of enduring controversy, which began violently, on the play's second performance, when the Civic Guard sought Caragiale to have him beaten up; more lenient liberals preferred to ignore it as a harmless farce, while others, though commending Caragiale for his talent, expressed the view that his social critique was exaggerated, unfair, or untimely. The play charmed conservative opinion-makers, including Titu Maiorescu and Mihai Eminescu, and was later also upheld as a masterpiece by the Marxist school of criticism. A Stormy Night remained a staple of Romanian theater, with productions overseen by Caragiale down to his death in 1912; at the time, he was working on a sequel that also mixed in characters from his other major comedy, O scrisoare pierdută, and broadened the scope by also attacking conservatives. His posterity saw a split between "sociological" (and generally Marxist) productions of the play, as recommended by Sică Alexandrescu, and experimental versions by Alexa Visarion, Sorana Coroamă-Stanca, and Mihai Măniuțiu; both visions are occasionally opposed by "innocent" readings of the text, which emphasize the farcical elements.
A Stormy Night inspired a 1930s opéra bouffe by Paul Constantinescu, a 1942 film by Jean Georgescu, and various fragments of prose by Camil Petrescu. The play is heavily reliant on language humor, and as such notoriously difficult to translate—adaptations such as the French one, penned in the 1950s by Eugène Ionesco, include a large dose of lexical inventiveness. The Romanian communist regime encouraged publications and productions of the play throughout the Eastern Bloc and the developing world, where it has acquired a cult following. It was repeatedly used for stagings in Hungarian, done either in Hungary or among the Hungarian Romanian community—it was directed on two occasions by Gábor Tompa, who adopted a median position between experimentalism and the "innocent" repertoire.
Setting A Stormy Night was completed during the transition from the Principality of Romania, still a tributary state of the Ottoman Empire, to an independent and consolidated kingdom. As noted by cultural sociologist Zigu Ornea, this moment marked the "introduction of modern civilization", in which "the antinomy between the new forms and the multi-secular content was an inescapable reality."Ornea, p. 202 In this context, Romanian liberalism, centered on the National Liberal Party, had portrayed itself as both the modernizing and the authentically nationalist camp, while also reserving the option to discard the monarchy and establish a republic—this "demagoguery" was meant to both serve and conceal a spoils system, one which Caragiale had witnessed first-hand as a young liberal affiliate, and which had come to deeply resent.Ornea, pp. 202–206 As editor of Timpul, which sought to generate a backlash against liberal domination, Caragiale had already complained that the conservative, declining, boyardom was pe dric ("on the hearse").Marcea, pp. 66–67
Caragiale's "conservative Weltanshauung", only occasionally juxtaposed over party politics, had been informed by Titu Maiorescu and the Junimea society: the Juminist critique of liberalism was, from its inception, centered on exposing the liberals' detrimental influence on the cultural sphere, and in particular on the written and spoken language.Ornea, pp. 204–206 Other than taking up this attack on liberal culture, A Stormy Night focuses mainly on the Civic Guard, an urban paramilitary formation that had been established in March 1866—its stated purpose was "to represent at the highest level the nation, the civilian population in its entirety, irrespective of its social standing and wealth, hereby called under arms and ever-ready to defend its country."Ionescu, p. 79 Originally favored by conservatives such as Dimitrie Ghica, it was thereafter monopolized by the radical-liberal bourgeoisie.Șerban Cioculescu, "Breviar. Titu Maiorescu și garda civică", in România Literară, Issue 38/1970, p. 5 In his liberal phase, Caragiale had served in a Guard unit in Bucharest's Armenian Quarter—in one of his humorous memoirs, he recalls having paraded alongside baristas (cafegii), one of whom still wore an apron underneath his coat.Ionescu, p. 80 During the Romanian war of independence (1877–1878), both he and Maiorescu resisted pressures to show up for training as Guardists; Caragiale opted to give "repeated monetary contributions" in lieu of service. As noted by Caragiale's associate Iacob Negruzzi, the Guard was rendered laughable during the war, when the regular Land Forces had displayed bravery on faraway battlefields.Iacob Negruzzi, "Cu Iacob Negruzzi despre Caragiale—și îndeosebi despre O noapte furtunoasă", in Adevărul, 7 December 1931, p. 1
The play is set in an unspecified mahala (lower-middle-class neighborhood) of Bucharest; its text includes repeated references to shows at "Union" (also bastardized as Iunion), which is in fact actor I. D. Ionescu's beer garden, the Union-Suisse.Cioculescu (1974), p. 327; Ioniță, passim Dramatist Ion Marin Sadoveanu, dismissing claims that Caragiale was vague in describing nature, suggests that fragments of dialogue help to precisely locate the mahala on an identifiable portion of Dealul Spirii, in the vicinity of a limepit.Sadoveanu, p. 60 Museologist Ionel Ioniță argues the same, noting that the Iunion can be reliably located on Calea Victoriei, just north of the present-day Telephones Company Building, whereas the house in which the action takes place is most closely traced to the portion where Izvor Street led into Dealul Spirii. Ioniță argues that this location was chosen to conceal real-life events which inspired Caragiale.Ioniță, pp. 151–152, 158 According to research carried out in the 1950s by N. Vătămanu, these took place at No 26 Șerban Vodă Highway (on Dealul Mitropoliei).N. Vătămanu, "45 de ani de la moartea lui I. L. Caragiale. Jupîn Dumitrache", in Gazeta Literară, Vol. IV, Issue 25, June 1957, p. 5Ioniță, p. 158
The text contains some unusual geographic detail, combining fiction and reality—for instance, the house is located on a street named after Catiline. While no such street existed, Dealul Spirii was known for its abundance of landmarks named after other figures in the history of Ancient Rome. Literary historian Iulian Boldea, building on earlier observations made by theatrologist Maria Vodă Căpușan, proposes that the Bucharest which emerges from the various verbal clues is a "crooked City" and "labyrinthic space", as dictated by both the needs of the plot and by Caragiale's own infatuation with the "mingle-mangle" (talmeș-balmeș) of the universe.Iulian Boldea, "Sensurile moftului în opera lui I. L. Caragiale", in Vatra, Vol. XXIV, Issue 282, September 1994, p. 3 One cryptic portion of the text lets spectators know that the location is within hearing distance of orologiul de la Stabiliment ("the clock tower at The Establishment"), which mysteriously sounds off at "20 past 11". According to sociologist Monica Săvulescu, this detail highlights Caragiale's annoyance with haphazardness and "lack of purpose", which he saw as characteristic traits in Romanian culture.Monica Săvulescu, "Semnificațiile unei fraze încă necomentate", in Tribuna, Vol. XXVI, Issue 27, July 1982, p. 7 "The Establishment" designated an arsenal which was located in the perimeter now occupied by a much larger Palace of the Parliament.Ioniță, pp. 155, 158
The events of the play can be tentatively dated, based on the fact that the Iunion had opened for the public in early 1876.Ioniță, p. 150 Clues in the text indicate that they also take place shortly after lăsata secului ("the eve of abstinence"), which is usually taken to mean "Shrove Tuesday", in February; this is apparently contradicted immediately after by the date of the newspaper editorial, which has 15/27 răpciune—the Old Style and New Style dates for 15/27 September, but using the month's name in the superseded Romanian calendar. Scholars are in disagreement over what to make of the anomaly. Literary critic Florin Manolescu argues that Caragiale took no interest in the date being accurate, and simply used răpciune as an inherently funny word. Essayist and theologian Nicolae Steinhardt opposed this interpretation, proposing instead that lăsata secului refers in this context to 30 August, the last day before another period of fasting—non-canonical in Romanian Orthodoxy, which is the protagonists' religion, but embraced by many Orthodox under the influence of Transylvanian Greek Catholics.Nicolae Steinhardt, "O inadvertență a lui I. L. Caragiale?", in România Literară, Issue 52/1983, p. 11
Plot Act I