85 years after the first film based on the famous novel “The Twelve Chairs” by Ilya Ilf and Yevgeny Petrov, a theater version will be staged at the National Theater “Mihai Eminescu” in Chisinau, Info-Prim Neo reports. Director Petru Hadarca said at a press conference on Wednesday, September 20, that the situation that occurs in the novel is still topical today. It is the situation of people who go far away searching for a better future and protagonist Ostap Bender’s famous scarf is used in Moldovan society by anyone who needs promoting in electoral campaigns. The scarf changes colors according to everyone’s interests. “Staging this show was a dream and a challenge. Had I calculated a little more, I might have not dared to do it. The actors did a tremendous job, especially considering that this is a play based on a very famous novel, which has been screened twice and the quotes of the characters are well-known. The play contains a lot of music from our area. We tried to bring it from Odessa closer to the Balkans. We brought it here and you’ll feel it through a song composed by Vali Boghean. Victoria Bucun prepared some choreography with a concrete message”, said Petru Hadarca. Actor Leo Rudenco who plays Ostap Bender said that the character’s skillfulness is topical nowadays and smart people have something to learn from him. “Fortunately or unfortunately, I’m not Ostap Bender in life. I say so because I spent one of the last summers in Transnistria, were I was visiting some relatives. I was obliged to fill in a lot of papers when crossing the border and I thought that if I had been Ostap Bender, I would have destroyed them or at least I would have taken money from them and not otherwise. There are Ostap Benders in Transnistria, in our country and in the whole world”, said the actor. Leo Rudenco added that life would not be as interesting without Ostap Bender. With the brains and the money of the Ostap Benders in our country, they could go to Europe and do business there. But they like it here, where they can drain money from the people and from the intelligentsia. The rehearsals started on August 21 and the director says he would have needed 10 more days. A mobile scene was prepared because the play involves many changes of location. The novel “The Twelve Chairs” was published in 1927 by Ilya Ilf and Yevgeny Petrov who wrote together a series of satirical works. The novel is set in the Soviet era of 20s-30s and satirizes the “new world” with all the emancipations it brought.