What Secondary offers the world is even more than the chance to resonate with the ideas highlighted: from an aesthetic point of view, it is a courageous exercise in complexly mixing the realistic register with a type of discursive scenic essay, presenting various facets of the characters' existences through multimedia means. The author of the production uses new technologies to probe deeply into the psychology of the characters, whether through the cinematic dynamics of scenes projected on screens, through close-ups of the actors' faces, or through the serialization of intimate scenes between the protagonists.

From a moral point of view, the performance is a much-needed and provocative exercise in self-reflection (perhaps even uncomfortable for some), an honest exploration of the limits of the impact that theater can have on society, especially when those who make it cease to look at themselves first. It is a complex analysis of those moments when we give in to various external pressures or internal anxieties and give up the courage to take more or less radical positions, explicit criticism, or, worse, actions that disrupt the status quo, contenting ourselves with a secondary role in our own lives.

Cristina Modreanu, Scena Magazine – Secondary becomes primary at NTB   

With a strong self-reflective component, Secondary talks about work relationships and personal relationships at work, with the professional environment being analyzed being the theater. That these relationships, with their flaws, are reproduced in other professional environments is shown at the beginning, with a performance within a performance. A group of artists rehearses a production before its premiere. An excerpt from this performance serves as the premise for the general framework: set in a hospital environment, the "performance" discusses ethics, humanity, and professionalism in the local medical world. This "performance" stops before developing its themes, which are reflected in the larger performance and in the theatrical environment. The relationships between the characters—the actors and the director of the " performance"—take various forms, each with its own dose of tension, both professionally—with issues of authority, anger management, and creating a viable working environment within the group—and personally—couple and love relationships (which are not perfect synonyms) with varying degrees of wear and tear and toxicity. This is where the actors—Diana Dumbravă, Crina Semciuc, Ada Galeș, Cosmina Olariu, Mihai Călin, István Téglás, Alexandru Potocean, Emilian Oprea—have a difficult task in maintaining a balance between intimacy and naturalness on the one hand, and playfulness on the other. For the most part, this is achieved, putting the local audience, unaccustomed to such a sabotage of theatricality, to the test.

Oana Stoica, Scena 9 – The present as history. “Secondary” at NTB   

A mosaic of confessions of faith in several very powerful voices (authoritatively coordinated by the voice of the director/therapist and an actor/investigator, Marius Bodochi) that emphatically support the examination of artistic maturity, capturing the fragile architecture of the human situations in which the characters are caught in a quadruple essay: about alienation and relationships between people, about the condition of the actor, about the condition of women in society, and about the condition of theater among the performing arts. With stumbles and excesses, with laziness, disgust, discipline, and enthusiasm, with schematizations and redundancies that often sin on a general level in favor of the particular, on which the spotlight is carefully placed. It is a performance of solos, of Thalia's unheard voices that spin incessantly in the artists' heads and can derail them at any moment.

About the marginalized of yesterday and today (especially in the world of theater) and contemporary relationships in the workplace in a Romania still shaken by all these traumas, to which have been added over time other sources of alienation specific to the troubled era we are going through, inviting artists to episodes of anguish that grind down their human and artistic identity and destroy the communities to which they belong.

Luciana Antofi, Blog - The Short Resurrection of Mr. Lazarescu, or the struggle for a role in the same leap into the void: "Secondary." A theatrical war for a resurrection at the National Theater.  

After analyzing transgenerational trauma in detail in her play Exil, director Alexandra Badea returns to the Grand Hall of the National Theater in Bucharest with another moving production, Secondary. The new premiere is sure to resonate with many viewers, especially since the play touches on certain sensitive issues that each of us has faced in our professional or social lives, including power relations, workplace problems, feelings of exhaustion, and burnout. Throughout the performance, everyone can relate to a certain state of mind or perhaps a certain behavior of the characters, depending on their own experiences. On the other hand, it is commendable that such issues are brought before the public, even on the stage of a national theater, because these are topics that we should not be ashamed of or shy away from discussing. Depression, workplace abuse, and emotional stress are problems that our contemporary society faces more and more often, and the theater has an obligation to present and highlight them.

Andrei Bulboacă, Fictiunea Magazine - Emoția nu este ceva Secundar   

Translated by Andreea Codrea-Boeriu