Botho Strauß (1944) is one of the representatives of contemporary German drama most frequently performed in Europe. He studied literature, theatre history and sociology – the influence of the latter is obvious in his work as a dramatist. From the second half of the sixties he worked with Theater heute, then at the age of 26 he became dramaturgist with the Berlin Schaubühne. He wrote his first plays at the encouragement and for the stage of Peter Stein, director at the time but it was not long before others, among them the great French directors Luc Bondy, Claude Régy and Patrice Chéreau, also took notice of him. It was observed at the presentation of the Schiller Medal in 2007 that he is the “independent and critical chronicler of German society”. According to András Forgách, the Hungarian translator of The Park “He is simultaneously a shameless sensation-seeker and modestly seeks concealment.” His writings are imbued with the question of fatality and nostalgia for the various forms of tragedy, but he can also display biting humour. This is not the first time his work has been performed in a Hungarian theatre.

Since time immemorial the gods have longed for the smell of the earth, while humans try to conquer the air, the higher spheres – hopelessly. Oberon and Titania, “deserters” from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, wander around a city park to arouse in people the real, ancient desire of love. As the ambassador of his erotic mission, Oberon chooses the homosexual artist, Cyprian, who enchants the colourful residents of the park with the amulets he makes. But it is not enough to recognise the problem, one must also know how the remedy acts: despite the best of intentions, intervention from above can lead to a nightmare destroying body and soul. In the encounter between the mystic and harsh, everyday reality the divine intention ends up becoming its opposite: the quarrelling, unhappy lovers do not reach the divine recognition but instead the gods become like mortals.
A bittersweet comedy, a poetic play of metamorphosis, where the scenes paint a merciless picture of society in what could be described as a mythical space thoroughly misunderstood by the gods, for the park is actually nature tamed.

The founding members of the unique but much debated Rimini Protokoll theatre group, Helgard Haug, Stefan Kaegi and Daniel Wetzel met in the nineties at the Giessen Institute for Applied Theatre Studies. Although the genre has considerable traditions in Germany, according to a German critic the activity of Rimini Protokoll represents “the revival and complete reinterpretation of documentarist theatre”. They have presented the bankruptcy of the Sabena airline, examined the kinds of death in Central Europe and the maze of international diplomacy and brought residents of Mannheim and Weimar to reinterpret their lives in the light of Schiller texts. Thorough research work precedes their so-called “experts’ theatre” performances; what we see on the stage are not actors but the actual sources of the text, private persons sharing their own experiences.
They were guests of the Budapest Autumn Festival in 2006 with a performance titled Blaiberg und sweetheart19 that examined the question of Internet dating and heart transplants.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJgjs0Yiyo8

Take a lengthy theoretical work published in 1867, about which everyone talks but which very few people have read. That has an influence not only on economic theory and political practice, but also, whether they liked it or not, on the everyday lives of many people. But before you are put off, the Rimini Protokoll’s performance is not a dramatised stage version of Marx’s work; the directors have chosen from several hundred candidates the eight persons who tell each other and the audience about the role Das Kapital has played in their lives. Eight different life stories and professional careers, eight different readings of Marxist ideology and thinking set in a theatre space that is impressive in itself.
The production won first prize in the 2007 Mülheim drama competition.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJgjs0Yiyo8

Lev Dodin (1944) is currently perhaps the most influential figure in Russian theatre. Since 1967 he has taught acting and stage directing at the St Petersburg Theatre Institute and many of his former students now also enjoy international reputation. He has been directing in the Maly Teatr of St Petersburg since 1975 and has been its artistic director since 1983. He regularly holds master courses in many places around the world, from the United States to Japan. He has also staged a number of operas in the last decade or so.
In 2005 he added a Pro Cultura Hungarica Prize to his collection of Russian and international awards.
Since the enormous success of Gaudeamus in 1993 we have been able to see a number of his productions (mainly Chekhov) in Hungary.

“The great works are great because they contain within themselves all the contradictions of human life” – says Lev Dodin, who considers that there are two authors in world literature capable of giving drama at once a deeply personal and a universal perspective: Chekhov and Shakespeare. In Dodin’s work Shakespeare’s tragedies had to wait till 2006, when – after a multi-year Chekhov cycle – he plunged in with a production of King Lear. On this occasion too, the master of thorough analysis and great attention to detail was true to himself: his King Lear is the result of a rehearsal process lasting more than two and a half years.
“It is generally considered that this is the tragedy of a single person, of Lear. Personally, I have never agreed with that: the protagonists are held together in a strict system, the mutual dependence of kinship bonds (...). But how can such a noble-hearted father have such evil and ungrateful daughters? And if the father is so good, could it be that his daughters are not evil either?” Lev Dodin builds up the stage world of King Lear around this basic question, using shades of black and white.

“I have long been thinking about how to write a one-woman piece for Eszter Csákányi, but it would be more precise to call it a theatre evening, a performance lasting roughly an hour and a half in which seven women come to life in her voice, her body, through her acting. There are parallel monologues of lives, situations and, above all, sentences, new and old (the above working title, for example, is the title of one of my earlier short stories whose heroine will also be an important figure in this planned evening).
The seven women are, of course, one woman, and of course that one is seven and more. What links them together is partly the language and partly the actress herself, and of course a very simple “portable” space where the events take place. It is a coffee bar-pub-coffee-house space, a tiny space beside a battered piano with a table and chair, an occasion for talk, recollection, confession, and of course for acting.
We hear the successful businesswoman, the handwork pattern tracer, the diner waitress, the bar musician, the tram conductor and finally the actress “herself” – I won’t give all the details, the outline is ready but I still have to flesh it out with the right sentences, so I don’t yet know precisely who they will be, who they will become when we have all three dimensions of the role. Perhaps what interests me so much is to see what I will learn about them through Csákányi. Who am I in them?” Lajos Parti Nagy

“What makes me happy is being a part of something, a venture. But I have to choose that something – a cause, a community. I insist that my fate must be in my own hands. So that I can make my own decisions.” Eszter Csákányi

After Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead and Heiner Müller’s Hamlet/Machine, Andrei Moguchi again turns his attention to the Danish prince, but this time the stage text is based on Vladimir Sorokin’s Dismorphomania. We can state without hesitation that the writer’s linguistic directness evoking extreme emotions and the provocative solutions of the director known for his rather unusual approach to the theatre are an excellent match on the stage, although it is worth knowing that at the Moscow premiere the author created a stir by walking out of the auditorium.
Moguchi generally gives a snapshot of the present state of culture, his productions reflect the given moment. It’s not Hamlet is a grotesque and ironic protest against the commercialisation of the theatre and the rule of mass-produced stars; contemporary total theatre with video installation and punk music.
We can expect an exciting and unusual theatre evening!
The performance is recommended for persons over 16 and with strong nerves.

After Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead and Heiner Müller’s Hamlet/Machine, Andrei Moguchi again turns his attention to the Danish prince, but this time the stage text is based on Vladimir Sorokin’s Dismorphomania. We can state without hesitation that the writer’s linguistic directness evoking extreme emotions and the provocative solutions of the director known for his rather unusual approach to the theatre are an excellent match on the stage, although it is worth knowing that at the Moscow premiere the author created a stir by walking out of the auditorium.
Moguchi generally gives a snapshot of the present state of culture, his productions reflect the given moment. It’s not Hamlet is a grotesque and ironic protest against the commercialisation of the theatre and the rule of mass-produced stars; contemporary total theatre with video installation and punk music.
We can expect an exciting and unusual theatre evening!
The performance is recommended for persons over 16 and with strong nerves.

Thomas Alan Waits American singer-songwriter, composer, actor has an unmistakable voice: according to a critic it is “like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4ZMt-vMkfA&feature=related

This adaptation of Ferenc Molnár’s famous novel was staged in the Teatr Maly by Michał Zadara. In his interpretation the Paul Street boys are played by adult men. Their story becomes the point of departure for recalling experiences and ideals of their youth. Seen from this angle the play is above all about male friendship, honesty and dignity and tragic confrontation with death threatening young lives.

William S. Burroughs American writer, essayist, performing artist. He was one of the outstanding figures of the beat generation, his works are largely autobiographical in inspiration, drawing heavily on the experience of his opium addiction.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4ZMt-vMkfA&feature=related

The performance begins with a prologue in which the actors recall old memories when they were just beginning their careers in the Maly Theatre. We hear several “costume” anecdotes and finally they meditate on the possibility that within a few years the theatre building will probably no longer exist. In this way the story of The Boys of Paul Street is reflected in that of the Maly Theatre actors: the common factor here is departure, the sign of passing time. This episode leads into the performance and suggests its intention. Ferenc Molnár’s book – set reading in childhood for both the actors and the audience – becomes the subject of remembering, and through it we seek the traces of hidden common identity.

Robert Wilson American theatre director and artist strives to achieve a unity of movement, sets and costumes, music, sound and lighting. He has worked with renowned progressive dancers, singers and composers in both the US and Europe (among others, Meredith Monk, Philip Glass, Lucinda Childs, Keith Jarret, Laurie Anderson, Tom Waits, Lou Reed). From the mid-seventies he has regularly shown his works of art and spatial installations in independent exhibitions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4ZMt-vMkfA&feature=related