"The inexhaustible Ion Creanga proves to be just as young, just as witty and full of humor. Vitalie Bichir's respect for the enormous prestige of the text, the idea of preserving unaltered the letter and the language of the boy from Humulesti are the first observations that are necessary in analyzing this performance. The script is articulated according to the sensitivity of the actor who becomes either a mask of silence frozen in fatality, or a storyteller full of verve.

The musical passage with the Angel cried is the emotional axis of the performance.

We identify a double communication and ask: 'Who is telling who?'. The video/mapping projections, the particular sound universe and the presence in front of the video camera show us Creanga caught between Vitalie Bichir's passion for national literature and his organic need to express a personal truth with the aesthetic means of a postmodern climate."

Madalina Dumitrache, Bel-Esprit - Creanga – our contemporary  

"The director confesses that the idea of a re-adaptation of The Memories came to him precisely from a visit to his own village, in the Republic of Moldova, where the world of the past seemed to have fallen into a definitive oblivion, the threshold of the house found almost in disrepair, animated as if only by the voices of its former inhabitants.

In this way, sitting on a log and looking at the surroundings, Vitalie Bichir realized how many similarities there are between his own childhood and that of Nica, which is why the performance became a sincere and necessary exercise of remembrance."   

Gabriela Avram, Bookhub – Childhood memories – theater as a bridge between art and life  

"Childhood memories! Whose childhood? His? Ours? Our world? I look around and see spectators of all ages. Some know about the taking a swim, about Mos Chiorpec Ciubotariu, others surely don't understand and will never understand how Irinuca's house and goats went downhill.

"The Children's Teacher, a reading book from 1838, writes its teachings on a screen behind the stage, forcing you to be honest and admit that the world has not changed in its fiber, that the blood pulses the same, that the heart twitters the same longings, the same pains. Playful and bittersweet, wise and sprinting memories throw you into the world of your own memories. Et in Arcadia ego. How lucky we are to have memories!"

Alina Maer, Scenes and words - Childhood memories or confession for those who have lost their homesickness  

"The naivety and fun of some anatomical definitions are combined with the idea of the mechanical learner specific to the era, which placed great emphasis on memorization. The actor is overwhelmed by the memory of his mother and also brings to the stage elements of the peasant household as it has always been: chopped wood, stumps, axes and other mood-creating details. The audience is thrilled by the confessions and enjoys being reminded of stories they already know, served up by a great actor seated on a stump on stage.

Gentle and wise, sober and ironic, mobile and immobile, reflective and communicative, Mr. Bichir conveys well what he had to convey. The most captivating part was the anatomy lesson (about the brain, lungs, the blood system and heartbeat, etc.) shown on a screen with a projector."

Dinu Grigorescu, Rinocerul Magazine - Childhood memories by Ion Creanga at the NTB  

"The actor puts his directorial stamp through changes of pace in his acting, keeping the audience's interest throughout the entire performance. (...) Throughout the performance you realize that Vitalie Bichir is not just an actor who interprets the story, but he is a man whose life story and childhood also come out on stage, together with the story of Ion Creanga, and go step by step actually building the performance of life with which so many identify."

Alexandra Dinca-Macovei, Ziarul Pozitiv - Childhood Memories at the NTB on National Day  

"Vitalie Bichir managed to breathe life into a text that was dead to me. He managed to turn it into something delicious, something I savored with pleasure, something I recommend to anyone at any time. Something I would have refused to see in school precisely because of school.

Childhood Memories is also an acting lesson taught by Vitalie Bichir. You don't have to invent a text especially for you, you don't have to go through all the world's drama to find a text that makes you stand out, but you have to find a text, whether dramaturgical or not, that you feel. That represents you. Vitalie Bichir lives Creanga's memories, and the audience feels as if that is his childhood. Which, from what the actor reveals, is partly true."

Emil Calinescu, LaTeatru – Childhood Memories – NTB  

Translated by Andreea Codrea-Boeriu