Zaharia Bârsan

An employee of the National Theatre Bucharest from that point, he also participated in numerous traveling shows; between 1903 and 1913, he was a central figure of theatrical life in Transylvania.

Following the province's 1918 union with Romania, Bârsan became the first director of the Romanian-language Cluj National Theatre, serving from 1919 to 1927, from 1931 to 1933 and finally from 1934 to 1936.

Using a romantic, incantatory style, he performed tragic roles that included Oedipus, Prince Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth, Karl Moor, and Ruy Blas.

His poems, which had romantic and Sămănătorist elements, appeared in book form as Visuri de noroc (1903) and Poezii (1907; 1924).

Bârsan's most influential writings were his plays: the melodrama Sirena, first performed in 1910, in which the destiny of a maladjusted artist meets that of a domestic lady of the camellias; the 1914 drama Se face ziuă, about the Revolt of Horea, Cloșca and Crișan; and the dramatic poems Trandafirii roșii (1915) and Domnul de rouă (1938).