Scientific report, made by famous stage director Ion Ungureanu at the academic conference, on May 7th , 2009, with the occasion of awarding him the title of Doctor Honoris Causa, refers to a very significant problem, announced just in the title. Considering theatre to be the most important kind of art to refl ect the human being, consciousness and life of man’s soul, the author traces some main stages of those changes, that have taken place since ancient times till now under the infl uence of the phenomenon of faith, as well as under the absence of such an infl uence, when spiritual values and ideals are substituted with those false of ideology in the both societies of East and West. Addressing to such plays as Medeea by Euripides, Nora by H. Ibsen, The 41st by B. Lavreniov, Who is afraid of Virginia Woolf? by E. Albee, Casa mare and Doina by I. Drutse, Minodora by A. Strimbeanu, it gives a possibility to reveal an essential role of the theatre in society’s life and history, the role once determined by the great Shakespeare as to be “a mirror and a brief chronicle of the age”.