by Andreea Telehoi, photo: Augustina Iohan
„Instead of bowing before holy icons, they bow before holy brands.”
Just when you think you’ve heard it all, rest assured — you haven’t.
The play „Maria from the Mall” by Gheorghe Smeoreanu, directed by Lászlo Vadas and produced by the ARIEL Municipal Theatre in Râmnicu Vâlcea, is a satire with no trace of restraint, targeting the superficiality of contemporary society. Alongside sociocultural and technological shifts, we also witness a transformation of human values, principles, and belief systems.
Faith is something deeply personal and subjective. Each person has their own unique relationship with the divine, one that cannot be defined by fixed patterns. Faith is not just about attending church every Sunday and on holy days. It’s a delicate subject — especially since the Romanian people, though having assimilated much of Western customs and mentality, still tend to maintain a traditional relationship with religion.
Gheorghe Smeoreanu’s text addresses the relationship with the church and with faith in a sharply satirical tone. The world portrayed in this play has reached a shocking stage of moral decay. Everything starts with a mall being built inside a church. The action unfolds on two levels. A stained-glass wall marks the front part of the stage, representing the church, while the back represents the mall. Priests still come to pray in this deformed space. Taking advantage of the situation, store clerks exploit religious elements for advertising purposes: “Touch the True Cross of the Savior and get a discount on all products!” They even begin selling crosses and other religious items, to the horror of the priests: “Do you think people won’t buy them if they’re not sanctified? I’m telling you: they will — especially if they’re discounted.”
At the forefront of this spiritual depravity is Maria, a woman of questionable morals, who haunts the mall like a ghost. She drifts among people and priests, seeking salvation that is consistently denied her. Her only chance lies with Zosima, one of the priests, who decides to search the depths of the desolate human soul to find a glimmer of light in the muck into which society, corrupted by consumerism, has plunged it. He helps her to “confess” — ironically — in the mall’s church space.
The director amplifies this dimension of decadence by shaping the characters in a grotesque manner. The store clerks resemble devils, dressed in kitsch outfits seemingly purchased from a cheap brothel. Shoppers in the mall appear as absurd caricatures: women with basketball-sized breast implants and platinum-blonde wigs; overweight men ticking off every relationship stereotype — going fishing instead of spending time with their wives, drinking beer, and constantly watching matches with their friends. These clichés have become comedic material for younger generations, whose habits have shifted — but in this production, they are taken so far that you can no longer laugh. It feels like a stop in one of the nine circles of hell.
Beyond the powerful visual aesthetic, the actors’ performances are also marked by exaggeration and declamatory tone. Not even the priests escape the temptations of the mall. And behind this carnival of debauchery, we hear beautiful classical music playing — an ironic contrast.
The play’s conclusion is delivered by Maria: “It hurts to see how faith, love, and connection to God vanish, how the soul is lost, and emptiness takes hold of people.” In the end, all the characters are nothing but puppets, repeating the same phrases, deaf to the priest’s voice trying to save their souls.
Maria from the Mall is inspired by the Life of Saint Mary of Egypt, written by Saint Sophronius, Patriarch of Jerusalem. Lászlo Vadas’s staging is a raw theatrical transposition that sharply emphasizes moral corruption and spiritual decline. It is a painful, somber warning — with a faint glimmer of hope that humanity might still find redemption, if even the worst of sinners can be saved.