about the production
Heller and the Mohácsi Brothers, sharing very similar ideas and approaches, have made a hyperfarce from non-sense changed to reality. (...) We take delight in the murderous humour of the fictitious reality, from the parody of a mad drill to the scene where the blind-folded archer of the General Staff randomly chooses his next bombing site on a map of the world: Kaposvár (Budapest, Nitra, Warsaw, remark of the editor) after Byzantium. We really let ourselves be convinced that we deserve to be bombed just as anyone else. For the actor wonderfully argues before the lit up audience. (...) The Kaposvár ensemble is charming again. A plastic material. Unification of morals and technology. A mechanism assembled of personalities. Magicians of accuracy and rhythm.
... And they bomb Kaposvár just like that. In the end, even the theatre in which we are sitting. The walls shake, an explosion, silence and absolute darkness. An icy wind is chilling us. Then the lights go on: there are two giant fans on the stage. The chill of reality lasts for a moment, then the common illusion – the play – returns.
Tamás Koltai, Élet és irodalom
Heller’s drama was a Pirandello-Brechtesque one. Mohácsi’s dramatization is a Pirandello-Brechtesque one. The performance opens in a Pirandello manner. He stresses: What we see is not reality, it is just theatre. He extends the act, the deed in a Brechtesque manner. He generalizes it to a moral example – he creates morality from the act.
Péter Molnár Gál, Népszabadság
If we take the past ten years of János Mohácsi’s directorial work into consideration, we will get a sufficiently clear image of what has gone on above our heads. His work speaks of what the arrogance of power, crime mean today, what it means when justice is not functioning, when criminals control the life of society, when the ghosts of the past haunt us, when the fight between two sides – ideologies – slowly crushes the moral, material and cultural reserves of a country, etc.
János Mohácsi belongs to those few truly unbiased and thoughtful artists whose moral judgement is worth taking note of. His independence has maintained a measure of the former dignity of the „independent intelligentsia" status.
Csaba Küsmödi, Ellenfény
creators
directed by János Mohácsi
music: Márton Kovács
choreography: Richárd Tóth
set: Zsolt Khell
costumes: Edit Szűcs
lightening: Tamás Bányai
operator: István Znamenák
direction assistant: Gábor Hornung
cast: Zsolt Anger, Zoltán Bezerédi, Helga Ébl, Balázs Fila, Mónika Hatvani, György Hunyadkürti, Tamás Karácsony, József Kelemen, Pál Kocsis, Gitta Kolompár, András Kőrösi, Béla Kósa, Zsolt Kovács, György Lugosi, Viktor Nagy, Egyed Serf, László Szula, Tamás Szvath, Eleonóra Tóth, Géza Tóth, Richárd Tóth, Zsuzsa Varga, István Znamenák and others
orchestra: Tamás Antal, Balázs Horváth, Márton Kovács, Zoltán Nagy, Tamás Rozs, Ákos Varga
director
János Mohácsi (1959) – is one of the most significant innovators of contemporary Hungarian theatre. During the fifteen years he has performed in a renowned theatre in Kaposvár, his performances have always been acknowledged by audiences and critics alike. He is one of the few Hungarian theatre artists who always adapt the staged plays to the current reality. Mohácsi has a special sense for the pressing problems of suffering people in his surroundings and he always inspires his ensemble to the co-authorship and joint staging of the plays. And that is something, especially in a country with a strong director’s theatre tradition.
Whether it’s a comedy, operetta or tragedy (Feydeau: A Flea in Her Ear, Kálmán: The Czardas Princess, Miller: The Crucible – just to mention a few of the genres and performances which have garnered awards in the past years), Mohácsi is constantly looking for a new perspective and new truth in known classical works. This time he worked with Joseph Heller’s – We Bombed in New Haven – it is about the sad reality in a town near where IFOR/SFOR troops have been stationed in the past few years and where airplanes intended for bombing Belgrade can sometimes be seen. It is a bombing that evoked more passionate reactions than maybe any other political event in the past decade.
Materials available
Video of the production: no
Scripts of the production: SK, HU
If you are interested in these materials, write to archivy@nitrafest.sk