VII. Madách International Theatre Meeting

Nighttime uses the language of poetry to tell us about the essential themes of spiritual and mental homelessness of people today, the conflicting beauty and destruction of the created world, human indignity and the threatening lack of prospects in our era.

Pilinszky’s texts confront us with the fundamental questions of existence. The basic themes of his poetry – solitude and summation, the alienation of people today, passing and letting go, introspection and search for the self, salvation, hope, mercy and grace, and, most importantly, experiencing homelessness and homecoming in a religious sense – give the dramaturgical line of the performance. The show does not tell a story, but processes the feelings that, willingly or not, we all carry in our souls.

Nighttime unites a variety of art forms, and draws on János Pilinszky’s poetry. There will be extracts from the following poems by János Pilinszky: On a Forbidden Star (Tilos csillagon), Apokryph, Heatwave (Kánikula), Revelation VIII. 7. (Jelenések VIII. 7.), I believe (Azt hiszem), The Nadir Celebrated (A mélypont ünnepélye), Sztavrogin Takes Leave and Szavrogin Returns (Sztavrogin elköszön and Sztavrogin visszatér), and miscellaneous others works.

“In Nighttime you are between Heaven and Earth, somewhere halfway. (…) Principally, I try to see the poet’s world as my source. I attempt to embrace the impulses, impressions and thoughts coming from the poet, then give my own interpretation of them using theatrical language, and transplant them onto stage. A poem might not be recited word by word in the show, but is present in other forms: shaped into an image for instance, or as an inspiration for a musical opus. (…) I find poetry much more inspiring than a set drama, as it allows more artistic freedom. (…) Béla Hamvas (Hungarian philosopher) said that your only tool to bear your ghosts is to laugh at them. What is in question here is an outsider’s cheerful frame of mind that can help us to rise above the insufficiency of our lives.” (translated words of Kinga Mezei)