The Brothers Karamazov

The Jókai Theatre has a specific place in Slovak theatrical context. From 1990, except for its basic mission to play for the members of the Hungarian minority in its mother tongue, it has been trying to create its own theatrical language based on the synthesis of the values of Slovak and Hungarian theatrical art. In this tendency to find its own style, own theatrical expression, the big role plays a co-operation with Slovak artists. A few years ago Martin Huba successfully directed here the play by György Spiró Impostor, later he staged a dramatization of Dostoyevsky’s novel of The Brothers Karamazov.

The last season was extremely successful for the Jókai Theatre and proved the rightness of the artistic tendency of the new management of the theatre. The production of The Lieutenant from Inishmore by Martin McDonagh, directed by Andor Lukács, was awarded the main prize at the Festival of Hungarian Theatres Outside Hungary in Kisvárd, the production of The Brothers Karamazov became one of the most significant theatre events of the last season in Slovakia.

By his own adaptation of Dostoyevsky’s novel Martin Huba created an intense theatrical text based on a few crucial dramatic moments of the original. The productions asks the eternal questions about crime, guilt and responsibility in an emotive way, and that is because of the text but mostly because of brilliant acting: „Good old realism“  shows here its constant validity when the classical text, adapted in a traditional theatrical form, becomes “modern” drama that speaks currently and addresses the spectator both emotionally and intellectually.
Géza Hizsnyan