Independent show hosted by the National Theatre of Bucharest. The organiser is exclusively liable for the quality and content of this event!

The play tells us about Lady Despina, the wife of the ruler Neagoe Basarab, who became the nun Platonida, an exceptional destiny but also about a great ruler. Neagoe Basarab was the ruler of Wallachia between 1512 and 1521.              

In 2008 the Romanian Orthodox Church canonized him "for his holy deeds and the flourishing of Orthodox spiritual and spiritual life in the Wallachia".             

Neagoe Basarab was, according to some historians, a man of his time. He was a pious and erudite ruler, brave and skillful in the use of arms, an accomplished politician and a skillful diplomat. For all his accomplishments he was nicknamed by Bogdan Petriceicu Hașdeu "Marc Aureliu of Wallachia, prince, artist and philosopher". Nicolae Iorga called him "a gentleman with emperor-like qualities". Neagoe Basarab was considered the most educated ruler, who left his mark on hundreds of years of thinking in Wallachia. We follow Mother Platonida (Lady Despina) in her chapel at the Ostrov Hermitage, dividing her life between prayer and her diary in which she records her experiences and memories of her husband, Mr. Neagoe Basarab, her family and her country. It is 30 years since the death of her husband Neagoe Basarab, and during this time she had also lost her six children. She gradually introduces us into the story of their life, of the joy of having met him, of having been enriched by his presence and the blessing of his family. We are led through the earliest memories of her childhood, in the Serbian Land, the daughter of the despot Iovan Brancovici, guided by teachers skillful in all the sciences but especially in the knowledge of the faith and the teachings of the Scriptures. She tells us about her first meeting with Neagoe Basarab and the total change in her life, her moving to Wallachia, her religious encounter with Holy Metropolitan of Wallachia Niphon (St. Hierarch Niphon, Patriarch of Constantinople) who became her confessor and guide. The story continues with the story of the election of Neagoe Basarab as ruler, with the blessed years of his reign over the Romanian Lands, with the teachings of Neagoe to his son Theodosius and his family, about the troubles of the country, about the worries of Neagoe, about the work of repairing several monasteries and churches and the foundation of new ones, including his great achievement, the Curtea de Arges Monastery, about a life of beauty and holiness. It is a plea of the idea of human greatness, a model of a Christian family, of a Christian mother. We are witnessing a unique performance in which the planes of the scenic present, of memory and the force of the document overlap.

The screenplay adapted for the stage was inspired by the volume His Worship, Neagoe Basarab. Writings of the nun Platonida, Lady Despina of the Romanian Homeland. The volume was written by the nuns of the Diaconesti Monastery and published by Bonifaciu Publishing House in 2012. The volume was republished in 2024.

The performance is produced in partnership with the Archdiocese of Bucharest, Sector III Deanery.

Translated by Andreea Codrea-Boeriu