"A quintessentially postmodern theatre, aimed at an audience open to novelty, who want to be surprised like a child entering the house of mirrors or the horror of an amusement park. It can rightly be said that such intelligent, cerebral, formally terrifying theatre, so popular in Anglo-Saxon countries, lacks a little of the soul and the ineffable element of Russian theatre, so valued in Romanian theatre, in which the director's mother, the great and late director Catalina Buzoianu, excelled.

Stefan Iordanescu has ventured into an area of theatrical pioneering and has created a visually elegant show thanks to the wonderful scenography of his daughter, Dorothea Iordanescu, who ingeniously combines the elements of nature - seasons, landforms, geography - with the scenic reality of the characters in perpetual deconstruction and fluidity. A clever, ironic and unconventional performance where everything starts out realistic-traditional and evolves into a dizzying spiral of performance art about theatre and existence.

The success of this show is brilliantly supported by the four stars of the National Theatre from Bucharest, Medeea Marinescu, Gavril Patru, Alexandra Salceanu and Petre Ancuța, who each give a remarkable power tour with many memorable and hilarious moments, giving us the measure of their great talent. The four actors play with joy, mastery, seemingly inexhaustible energy and a versatility of registers as only such a text, of great weight but also beauty, can allow.

It is a lively, modern, exceptional show, in its own key, on all levels, which pushes not only all the boundaries of theatre, characters and the actors who play them, but also the boundaries of audiences and critics."

Alexandra Ares, Rinocerul magazine - Perplex by Marius Von Mayenburg, premiere at NTB, exceptional  

"It should be mentioned from the beginning that the performance has numerous references both theatrical and philosophical, perhaps the most striking being Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author. You will also find references to the theatre of the absurd, mainly to Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot or even to Endgame.

It's an uncomfortable performance that takes the viewer out of their comfort zone, provoking a constant need for answers.

A big well done to Dorothea Iordanescu, the scenographer of the performance, who managed to create an uncomfortable set, with small elements of mystery, at the same time disturbing but surprisingly pleasant. The set is exactly the translation of the play: it annoys you, it upsets you, but you like it, it has certain elements that keep you there.

At Perplex the spectator will not sit quietly in his seat, protected by the much discussed and much theorized fourth wall. The protection really is about an hour and ten minutes, after which this imaginary wall begins to crumble. And not only it. But also the scenery. (...) In other words, the theatrical illusion dissolves in front of us, bringing us face to face with real life.

Although it surprises you, and sometimes shocks you, Perplex is also funny, because humor is an integral part of the show.

(...)I recommend the audience to go prepared that they won't see something comfortable, but if they are carried away by convention, they will come out after an hour and forty a little changed, or at least with a different perspective and a few small or big question marks. Because any evolution, be it spiritual or intellectual, cannot be made without a minimum of effort and sweat".

Andrei Bulboacă, Ficțiunea magazine - About a different kind of... performance  

"Perplex is a kind of mirror room, where everywhere you turn, you see a reflection of the reality that surrounds each of us. It's impossible not to recognize someone familiar in one of the characters who appear, one by one, on stage. A relative. A neighbor. A colleague. Yourself? It's impossible not to know someone who has experienced one of the situations that unfold kaleidoscopically before you... It's an experimental performance that forces you to see the world you live in through a colored but painfully clear lens. It's disconcerting, it's direct, it's a theatrical pamphlet in which illusions are the reagent that unravels the film of reality.

It's a performance you don't have to like to be touched. At least in Stefan Iordanescu's staging, which he made with emotion. Beyond the absurdity of the intertwining stories, the perhaps too strong accents here and there, the rhythm that precisely controls the chaotic course of the action, Perplex is played with finesse and meticulousness. No detail left to chance, nothing illusory, and nothing fast-forward in the construction of the characters. Characters - I don't even know how many - that compose, decompose and recompose themselves chameleonically from the gestures, looks, voices, silences and heartbeats of four actors. Actors who gently break down the fourth wall and plant in the audience smiles, tears (I don't know about others, but yes, I cried a little), wonder and a bit of the joy with which they do their job".

Mădălina Mihai, Cultural 21 - Perplex, a kind of mirror room  

"Perplex, a performance about art that is reality, about reality that doesn't exist (or, indeed, it does exist - even quantum physics studies don't know exactly what is true anymore), so...if art is the mirror of reality, then can we say that Mayenburg's text and Stefan Iordanescu's staging are about art that doesn't exist? Or is it about Plato and the myth of the cave? Or is it about Darwin and the theory of evolution? (...)

What is real and what is virtual? What is theatre and what is magic? What is life and what is cruelty? What is society and what is theatre? Perplex at the I.L. Caragiale National Theatre in Bucharest can answer that question. Or not. But what is certain is that it can give you the chance to meet a strong acting quartet, forming a common body, but also standing out as distinct individuals. Medeea Marinescu, Alexandra Salceanu, Gavril Patru and Petre Ancuta. (...)

And none of them are perplexed. But they are brilliant in this Perplex performance that leaves you Perplexed precisely because it doesn't allow you to breathe. Yeah, that's about as good as it gets!"

Tudor-Costin Sicomas, Republika Kritica - Between fiction and reality...  

Translated by Andreea Codrea-Boeriu