...how did the text come to life?
1 year earlier: The founding of Smurf Village
Hobó [Tibor Pálffy, the director of the performance] met us, the dramaturg-class, last year at the premiere of The Angel in Sfântu Gheorghe. He saw something in the three of us. What exactly, we still haven’t figured out, but maybe it doesn’t matter :) That’s when we agreed that somehow, in some way, we would work together this year.
Early January: We started—but what exactly?
Hobó: I want you to write a text about The Woman, goodbye!
Mid-February: Inspiration is there, but no results yet. Still, a path appears we can start walking.
Hobó: Aha, this isn’t quite what I had in mind—it’s not bad, but keep trying. It should have a stand-up vibe.
Early March: The kitchen becomes a text factory
Many late nights, on the edge of exam season.
March 15: The first version of the text is born.
Morning of May 15, ANT: Line run-through rehearsal based on the 20th version of the script.
Lilla-Aílz Stan
Hello, Mom? Hi! I think I’ve fallen in love.
And I was thinking, I could really do my master’s in Sibiu.
What? What’s there? Light, smoke, good choreography, humor, self-irony, talented, beautiful people. Isn’t that enough?
Oh nooo, it’s definitely not because I blushed because of the lead actor, no, and anyway, Făt-Frumos’s main job is to be good-looking, right?
...and if he’s also talented…
Alone?
As a class. Love can be a collective experience too.
Who’s in love with whom?
That’s a secret.
Anyway, they’re standing right here at the counter, gotta go, kisses!
Lilla-Alíz Stan
Lilla: Geri, you're the one responsible for the public hanging scene. What usually happens backstage afterward?
Geri: Emotionally, this isn’t the easiest thing an actor can go through.
Lilla: Still, I’m asking you, the “executioner.”
Geri: After I strap Barbara into the harness and the scene happens, we always hug each other. Sometimes I feel like I want to apologize to her for what I did. Seeing a body hanging like that is quite intense, especially from so close.
More than less
It’s 9 a.m. again, I’m sitting on the bed listening to Derik Fein’s Don’t Matter, trying to write a coherent sentence. I think that pretty much sums up the morning of the sixth day of the festival. (Now I’m listening to Chrystyna Marie’s Mama’s Blues.) If it was hard to organize and process all the performances on the first day, now I truly don’t know how to do it. I think the solution is not even to try. (WizTheMc - Show Me Love)
I’ll write about the performances/experiences that really made a strong impression on me (Derik Fein: Gaslight): first, the production Those who see are afraid of the dark, those who cannot see are afraid of the silence. The performance frames the topic of blindness in an exciting way: 30 people could participate, 15 with open eyes and 15 blindfolded. (Zunraid: Whiskey Morning) Those who couldn’t see relied on touch, while those who could see guided their blind partners. I find the concept exciting, I just regret not being among the 30 who could participate in this experiment. I, along with 59 others, watched as outside observers.
(Patrick Watson - Je te laisserai des mots) I’ll admit it, I cried. At a performance, of course: No one has ever asked us. The university students from Novi Sad tore my soul apart, then left the stage and we were left alone with our conscience. In Serbia (back home) there are protests, no classes, yet these students came to perform. (https://index.hu/kulfold/2025/03/15/szerbia-belgrad-tuntetes-demonstracio-diaktuntetes-tomeg-konnygaz/) We heard nine stories of people who had to leave their homes by force. We listened to the memoirs of women, men, and children who had no choice in whether or not to flee. Mostly individuals escaping political or war environments. But after climbing out of my pit of sorrow, I went to congratulate them — they were thrilled to hear me speak Serbian in Miercurea Ciuc, and we ended up inviting them for a round of pálinka. (Cobi - Goddess)
Loop was hilarious in its seriously unserious way. (Analog Balaton - Könnyű) It was delightfully humorous — I finally came out of a show laughing. These past few days were just as diverse as the mini playlist I listened to while writing this report. But there’s still one more day to go — let’s see what it brings! (Milky Chance - Stolen Dance)
Barna Léna
Pentru Inimi (For the Hearts)
I can honestly say I grew up with Șuie Paparude. On my very first phone — a Samsung c3300K — the ringtone and alarm for three years was Nu te mai saturi de noi. I felt like their music was always one step ahead of its time, and there was something in their songs that no one else had captured before. Raw and yet refined energy. A city sound made for skateboarding and biking. My thoughts were no longer just in my head — they had a soundtrack.
In 1995, Mihai Câmpineanu (Michi) and Mihai Dobre (Dobrică) released their first album, simply titled Șuie Paparude. At that time, Romania had very limited access to foreign electronic music. There's no doubt that the musical taste of teenage boys was hugely influenced by Michi’s father — the man behind the buttons — who was involved in music trading during the Ceaușescu dictatorship. Alongside commercial tapes and CDs, he brought in genre-defining electronic music through TAROM pilots — bands like New Order. In 1997, their second album was released, and it was a landmark because they managed to film a music video for one of the tracks. In early 2000s Romania, having your video played on Atomic TV was the biggest exposure you could get. Radio didn’t matter — TV did. And to be on TV, you needed a video clip. That’s where I trace my first memory of them. At around age 3 or 4, I was standing in front of the TV asking my mom to turn on "Tomi TV". That’s when their Scandalos album came out, with Cezar Stănciulescu (Junkyard) as the vocalist. In 2009, Junkyard left the band to start his own project, which became ROA. He was replaced by Bean MC (Marius Alexe). In 2021, Bean decided to focus on Subcarpați, and in 2022, by mutual agreement, Junkyard returned. This is the lineup we got to see now.
For me, Junkyard’s return was a huge breath of fresh air. Romanian electronic music from the 2000s isn’t dead. I believe the Unscene audience — whether they knew Șuie Paparude or not — understood the legacy this band carries. I’m convinced that the punk era helped democratize this genre, and there will always be an audience like us.
I don’t like to get political — it turns the stomach — but I’ll quote Dobre: “Go vote on Sunday!”
Bencze Tamás
Csenge: Tomi, you know what you have to do.
Tomi: We were performing Loop, which is a pseudo-fate tragedy in four acts, with a prologue, interlude, and epilogue. It’s an existential clown play, a light jab at the classical theatre's worldview, while for us it's a great exercise in maintaining constant freshness, improvisation, and openness.
Csenge: What did the “tsup, tsup, tsup” actually represent?
Tomi: That was the imaginary screen we were drawing.
Csenge: Let me share my backstage secret as a viewer: I was really anxious, because you opened toward us, the audience, and I thought that the performance wouldn't end until someone responded or reacted to you correctly. My friend Sári was sitting next to me—we’re notorious for being philosophical and analytical thinkers—
Tomi: Oh, yes!
Csenge: So Sári said, “but it’s a door.” She was waiting for the chance that maybe you'd ask her too, she wanted to say “door.” I wanted to say “occupied” or “who's knocking?”
Tomi: Well, it wasn’t about things like that at all. Originally, this performance started as Romeo and Juliet—with clowns—so even to this day it’s essentially a prologue to Romeo and Juliet. We didn’t want to use props, but we needed a screen, so we drew an imaginary one. We improvised so much around it that it became a 20-minute etude, which eventually became our exam piece last year. We kept stretching it until this loop system developed, which we took to a festival in Bale—
Csenge: Bali?!
Tomi: BA-LE, Croatia.
Csenge: Oh, same difference.
Szofi (from nowhere): But Bali wouldn’t be bad either!
Tomi: What’s special about it is that we can play it with three, four, or five people, depending on who’s available. Everyone knows all the roles, so we draw lots to decide who plays what. This time we rigged it, because Ádám Ferencz broke his collarbone, so he could only do the curtain clown role—that is, the narrator.
What was the most embarrassing thing that happened to you today?
I found out that what I thought was a relationship was actually more of a friends with benefits situation.
.......
Ádám: My phone went missing, then came back, and there was a Converse shoe print on the screen.
Tomi: Yessss, that might've been me.
Ádám: You already earned yourself a slap on the neck.
Tomi: I swear, I was the one who noticed the phone was left behind.
Ádám: Yeah, because it was under your foot.
..........
Léna: Which lunch menu did you like the most?
Gabesz: The sandwiches were really top-notch!
.........
Regi: The most interesting thing about the rehearsal process was that we had only seven days to put together this performance. That obviously required extremely focused preparation on my part to make everything work within the fifteen hours we had for rehearsals. Máté held a puppet for the first time during the first rehearsal and learned five different puppetry techniques throughout the process.
Csenge: Why did you choose Máté?
Regi: The rehearsal period got delayed by a month, so the person the text was originally written for couldn't take it on because he was rehearsing elsewhere. Coincidentally, Máté and I celebrated New Year’s Eve together, and I told him how desperate I was. He said he’d love to do it. We had such a good conversation about it that we placed complete trust in each other—we just knew it would work. I had never seen him on stage, and he had never seen any of my directing. It turned out to be one of the most exciting and best rehearsal periods of our lives: loving, stress-free. We considered each other creative partners, and the material evolved a lot as we worked. Máté was learning the script, and my dramaturg, Csenge Antal, and I were rewriting it every night to fit Máté. Csenge adapted the tale, and we dramatized it together. After every rehearsal, we finalized the script based on Máté's improvisations. I had written the music dramaturgy in advance, but he also learned that on the spot. After the fifth day, we had two days off because contemporary drama translations were being presented in Budapest, and we were asked by our directing department to stage a one-hour staged reading in a day. Máté participated in that too, so we accomplished a great deal in very little time. It was a successful two weeks in Budapest.
Csenge: And now joining us is the most beautiful male body in Central Eastern Europe,[1] Máté! Regi mentioned that you had to acquire a lot of new knowledge in a very short time. How did you feel?
Máté: The most exciting part for me was how I got into this. Regi had no idea what kind of actor I was—mutual sympathy was enough for her to bet everything on me for her exam. At the beginning, I felt overwhelmed and pressured by time. I didn’t know how I would do it, and I told Regi my doubts. She said we’d go with what we had and make the most of it. The biggest lesson was realizing that I can do it! I took on something I had never done before (a solo show, puppetry, a fairy tale), and it required strong performance skills. All basic acting abilities had to come together for this kind of work. I’ve received a lot of praise, which feels really good. So yes—it worked.
Csenge: I have to mention at this point that after the performance, I spoke with your classmate Janka, Máté, and she was deeply moved with pride. Everyone was rooting for you.
Máté: It was about pushing the cart forward together.
Regi: I think seeing someone as a creative partner means building a genuine human connection with them. There was no distance or limitation between Máté and me. It was also a first for me: my first time directing a puppet show, so we were able to experiment together.
Máté: Still, the roles were clear—she was the director, I was the actor—but there was no hierarchy.
Csenge: Do you have any fun behind-the-scenes secrets?
Máté: I struggle with memorizing lines—I learn slowly, and under time pressure, imprecisely. This was the first job in my life where that became an advantage. It shaped the performance, because they adapted it to my humor. They let me play freely. Csenge, the scriptwriter, was right there…
Csenge: Every script is written by a Csenge.
Máté: Exactly. She was just holding her head like, “I'll rewrite this, and this, say something better here.” She handled it very flexibly.
[1] In our three-year friendship, there has never been an occasion where I didn’t publicly refer to Máté like this. His nickname appears here now at his request.
Kata, how’s the bread with lard?
Kata: Pretty great, though a bit bland, I must say.
.......
Péter, can you come here for a sec?
Péter: Do you guys have a USB-C charger?
Léna: Unfortunately not. What was the highlight of your day?
Péter: That’s a secret.
......
A group is playing cards in the theater lobby.
What do you think about young people playing cards at a theater festival instead of watching performances?
Gabesz: It’s a good activity; it brings back old memories—like when you went on vacation with your family, it rained, and instead of being glued to your phone, you played cards outside.
Máté: Yeah, back to childhood.
.......
Have you ever noticed what color socks director V.A. wears when directing?
Panka: He often wears the same color as his T-shirt. It was really noticeable when he wore yellow socks with a yellow T-shirt.
And if his socks don’t match his shirt, does he lose his directorial magic?
Panka laughs out loud
Léna Barna
Panka: Péter doesn’t like being called by nicknames. I told this to Berecz Bogi, the director of the play. Since then, she’s consistently called him “Gityós Petyó.” Shamelessly.
Csenge: How does that make you feel, Péter?
Péter: I tolerate it. It’s completely fine. In the last song, the one called “A jövőhéten…” (Next Week...)
Panka: But only next week!
Péter: Yes, there’s this part that goes “but only next week,” Panka, please continue.
Panka: Bogi loves to sing it like a manele. Like this. Go ahead and try writing that down.
Csenge: We know the play came from your novel, which you adapted with Matyi and Bogi. What about the songs?
Péter: They’re my own songs.
Csenge: Where can we find them?
Péter: They’re gathering dust on SoundCloud. I didn’t write songs specifically for this play, nor did I want to.
Panka: Great, you didn’t even want to...
Péter: That wasn’t the plan—Panka didn’t specifically ask. These songs already existed, and Panka said she wanted this “bundle” just as it was. They were built into the piece, and we think they fit very well.
Panka: That’s not exactly how it happened. We were open to you writing new ones too. But it wouldn’t have been realistic to expect six songs in three weeks. That’s roughly how fast everything happened. And these songs just fit so incredibly well—there’s even one we left out because it would’ve fit too perfectly (it’s called “Thanks, Life”), but we use that to promote the show since it’s kind of the essence of it.
Csenge: Péter, you were Panka’s classmate during your first year of acting school. How does it feel to be back on stage? Have you done anything like this since?
Péter: No, it was a big challenge for me at first—and honestly, it still is.
Panka: I was lying under piles of paperwork today and kept thinking how crazy it is that Péter was clearly nervous during the dress rehearsal, and now there’s no trace of that. It’s all second nature to him. There were definitely moments when he probably thought it was a good thing he quit university. We even set where exactly to hold the capo. He looked at us like, “But it’s just a capo!” Yes, but it matters under which line of text you fiddle with your guitar.
Péter: I’m really lucky with this team. Bogi, Matyi, Panka—we’ve got great chemistry, I feel safe.
Csenge: You’ve already performed the play in several places.
Panka: Yes, we premiered it in Târgu Mureș, then at the Jurányi House in Budapest (thanks to Péter Kárpáti), we’ve been to Miskolc, Győr, and now here in Miercurea Ciuc. On the 21st we’re going to Sfântu Gheorghe, and we’ll also be at Thealter in Szeged.
Csenge: Where was the best experience?
Panka: We played it four times at Jurányi, and during the second show I felt like I had arrived in the performance, everything was really in my hands. I could act with total freedom. Every place has its charm—there wasn’t a single one that didn’t feel good.
Péter: Jurányi had that special vibe where we could compare the four versions: this one turned out like this, that one like that. They were all good, just each in their own unique way.
Dear Reader! Today is truly your lucky day, because you get a sneak peek into the rehearsal process of the performance.
Happy reading!
xoxo Gossip Girl
(this time, Csenge)
..........
Csenge: Tomi, you know what to do.
Tomi: The performance is about blind people, for sighted people. It’s a performative, devised experimental piece. We’re exploring the form together. It wasn’t directed by our teachers—they just facilitated the project. The text is documentary; we built it from interviews. We edited it using the verbatim method, emphasizing aspects important to us. It’s a sensory journey, an attempt to show what it’s like not to see. In fact, it’s not only about the experience of not seeing, but also about what it’s like to live that way. The show is divided by senses: hearing, smell, touch, sight. And there’s a segment where we walk to convey physical movement without vision.
Ádám: The performance is audience-number specific, because we interact with the audience. It can also be watched blindfolded. Five of us perform, and up to fifteen audience members can be blindfolded—more would be unsafe. At the festival, it could also be observed from the outside. During the improvisation phase, we had exercises where we led each other blindfolded through the streets of Cluj. It was fascinating to see people’s reactions. The most absurd moment was when we went to the Firefighter's Tower in Cluj, which has a tactile map at the top. I took Balázs Ádám there, but the doorman refused to let him up. I asked why, especially since the map was designed for blind people. The doorman said: "If he can’t see, why would he want to go up?" I had to convince him until he finally let us in.
Tomi: He sent Heni and me away. For me, the most striking part was walking blindfolded for two hours. Heni guided me, and we got lost in Cluj—her hometown!
Heni: Yes, we got lost even though I’ve lived there for 23 years. Balázs Ádám took me to the McDonald’s. I couldn’t have ordered food or found a place on my own. It was so crowded… Eating in a fast-food place like that is a real challenge. Near the rehearsal venue is a mall you can only reach via escalator. I was blindfolded, and Tomi led me down. I was genuinely terrified stepping onto the escalator. Even though I knew Tomi was there to help, I felt completely out of control. It was a real challenge.
Csenge: I suppose these trust exercises were great for the class.
Ádám: Yes. After all this time—we’ve been classmates for almost five years—
Tomi: I only joined two years ago.
Ádám: But he’s such a part of the team now, trust was never in question.
Tomi: We had an exercise where we played tag while blindfolded, and others guided us from outside. We started moving really confidently. We were all bruised afterward.
Heni: What was exciting during the tag game was seeing how brave everyone was—some people ran from wall to wall, I walked very slowly because I didn’t feel safe. And it was funny when others showed me how I looked from the outside.
Tomi: The grasshopper.
.............
Well dear reader, if you're also curious about the most awkward moments the actors experienced on Sunday, keep reading!
xoxo Gossip Nest
(this time, Léna)
............
Léna: What was the most awkward thing that happened to you today?
Tomi: Someone kept opening the door constantly in total darkness. That was super distracting. And a few people skipped lines. Just a few, really. (long pause) Actually, I skipped a line myself (laughs loudly).
Léna: You accepted that during the performance, every second person touches you, strokes you. How did it feel?
Tomi: I like being touched.
........
Léna: What was the most awkward thing that happened to you?
Ádám: We interviewed real people and based the show on them. I invited Csaba—the blind person I portrayed—to the performance. He came to see it.
Léna: “See” it?
Ádám: That’s how he says it too!
Léna: I thought that was a Freudian slip.
Ádám: No, no. Here’s the actual slip: after the performance, I said goodbye with "See you again."
.........
Léna: What was the most awkward part of the day?
Heni: When we had three times more applicants than spots, and had to select the 30 people who could participate in the show. That was super awkward.
We conducted a representative survey among festival participants. We spoke with actors, stage managers, organizers, spouses, career-changers, university students, amateur theatre enthusiasts, playwrights, and directors. Our conclusion: it’s not easy for anyone — but better one theatre season than none at all! If you're feeling playful, feel free to guess which answer came from which profession.
Xoxo, The Gossip Girl
(this time: Csenge)
If one dog year equals seven human years, how many human years does one theatre season equal?
Table 1
– At least nineteen.
– Five, but not because it’s my favorite number.
– Five popped into my head too, so I’ll go with that.
– Then I say six!
– For me, it’s nine.
– Okay, then let’s say seven.
Table 2
– A lot.
– Two to three weeks.
– Nooo, I feel like I aged at least twenty years during one season, so let’s go with that.
– We should break it down by days and measure our wrinkles, or the amount of hair we’ve lost.
– As an outsider, I have no clue, but it seems like a lot.
Table 3
– This current one feels like at least twenty-five. Every week feels like a year — especially with lots of performances. There’s so much stimulus, I’m constantly overwhelmed. January felt like three months, February didn’t even exist, March — what even was that? April: pure suffering. And now I’m just terrified of May.
– Sorry, I got confused. About fifteen, I guess. Time passes differently in the theatre — much faster and much slower. But I can’t give a reliable answer because I don’t have a contract yet.
Table 4
– I think it also depends on how many roles you have. If you have too few, you rot from the inside — that’s four years. If you have too many, that’s eight.
– I just want to add that I left the profession, but even on the job market I aged at least fifteen years in one year.
– I feel like I’m getting younger. It can even go negative if it's a good season. This was my first season after university, and I feel rejuvenated. But I have no money.
Table 5
– As long as it takes for a person to die.
– A lifetime.
– A human lifetime. Let’s say eighty. That way every season is a rebirth, a New Genesis.
– One rehearsal process feels like half a year. If you have three, that’s a year and a half.
– As a non-professional, I’d say ten at least.
– Yeah, around five to ten years per season, and in relationships you lose five years per season. A marriage can be destroyed over fifteen or twenty seasons. I’d advise newcomers not to take themselves too seriously. Life has to exist alongside theatre — otherwise, it will consume you.
Table 6
– Three-quarters of a year. Nine months.
– Maybe eight, because if you turn it sideways, it’s infinity.
Table 7
– Minimum five.
– As a stage manager, I’d say thirty.
– For the actor or the spouse?
– One.
– And for the spouse?
– Much more — let’s stick to dog years.
Table 8
– Depends on how much work there is. I’d say twenty.
– In a good theatre, you become younger.
– Depends who you’re working with. The first time, it feels like forty, but as you get used to it, it’s less and less. Just don’t end up with an “eighty” — that’s not worth it.
– Depends on the institution.
Table 9
– I think you already gave the answer with the dog.
– I still have hope — I feel three.
– Last year’s theatre festival marathon took at least twenty years off my life.
– I’d also like to join the radical answer — let’s count in dog years. Especially this season.
The Stairs and Surroundings
– Well, I don’t know. Gut feeling: twenty.
– It completely depends on who you're working with.
– Definitely more than two, but definitely more than one, and if we count one day of rehearsal as two days, and multiply that out, then that’s two years — but I’d even say it can double sometimes. There are weeks and days when it doubles, and if we include that, then it adds up to three or four.
– I don’t agree with you. I don’t agree with the dog metaphor. Why not a cat? A cat is just as good as a dog.
– And you know — you can’t make bacon out of a dog [Hungarian proverb].
– Yes, and also V = S/T, so if we consider time and distance, the speed of theatre…
– One hundred.
– It depends. It can feel like a month. You don’t even notice, and a whole season has passed! You’ve been there five years—
– A theatre season is a good thing.
– One theatre season is better than two.
– One season is better than none.
– I’m not contracted yet, but at university, when we did five shows, if I start counting, it felt like three years — but it passed the fastest. Time is a tool.
Dear Reader,
You've landed on the blog of Unscene 2025. Good. Very good. Since you’re already here, why not peek behind the scenes as well? We're trying to catch as many creators as we can (though this becomes increasingly difficult as night falls) — all in the name of gossip, of course! The goal of “Behind the Scenes” is to uncover as many exciting details as possible through short conversations about the rehearsal process and life of each performance, so our little theatre community can grow even closer.
We wish you pleasant and regular reading on the blog!
XOXO Gossip Girl
(that is, the bloggers — in this case, Csenge)
Csenge: New Genesis has traveled a long road. Literally — it’s gone from Cluj to Cairo. And figuratively as well — you're back at the festival with the same performance, but now with a different lineup: three of your former classmates no longer perform with you.
Betti: Originally, there was an exam version, and we didn’t even know it would become a full performance. We didn’t play iit for half a year, and then at the beginning of our third year, we decided to bring it back. The interesting part was that Gemza, the director, at one point split the group: the boys worked separately, and we girls did too. We didn’t even see what the other group was doing. There were big differences between the two groups, even just in the mood of the rehearsals. Of course, sometimes we watched the boys, and the energy was totally different. We were much more peaceful, and we really enjoyed working "as girls." There were ten boys and five girls in our BA class. The dynamic was always about how the many guys overshadowed the women, and that there should be more feminine energy. And that raised the question — what is “feminine” or “masculine” energy, anyway? We couldn’t define it, but we felt it: among us girls, we worked much more calmly, with greater agreement, and we could relax during the process. Among the boys, as I saw it, there were more people who wanted to take the lead. When we walked in on their rehearsals, I immediately felt, “Oh no, I don’t want to be here, I want to go back to the girls.” But overall, it was a very peaceful rehearsal process.
Csenge: And Cairo?
Betti: Major culture shock. A completely different world, a completely different kind of theatre. The festival we attended was only for universities from Arab countries — we were the only ones from Europe. In some of those countries, women aren’t even allowed to attend university. One country was represented by a theatre group from a local dental university. The only requirement was that the performance couldn't be longer than an hour. And we watched all of them — you can endure anything for an hour, even something terrible. We sat politely through everything, until after the third show someone told us, “You know, you can leave if you want.” It was totally acceptable — if you don’t like it, leave; if you need to pee, leave. People talked during the performances, used their phones, took flash photos... In New Genesis, there’s a part where everything goes dark — and of course, it did there too. So the audience turned on their phone flashlights because they couldn’t see and wanted to. The theatre culture is just very different. It’s about having fun and enjoying the show.
In Cairo, there was no ballet mat, and we obviously couldn’t bring ours on the plane. They told us the parquet floor was fine. It was full of splinters. Before the show, each of us was assigned a section, and we started picking out the splinters by hand. In the spots where there were too many to remove, we just taped over them.
I think this is our class’s favorite performance — it feels like home, and we enjoy playing it. It’s always new because you discover the newness inside yourself. It’s like therapy. Sometimes, if we don’t perform it for a while, we start saying things like, “We really need it again — to cry it out, to shout it out, to dance it out.”
Csenge: You won an award in Kecskemét. Congratulations!
Szofi: Thank you. I can’t really tell you any huge behind-the-scenes secrets, maybe just that time when my classmate Eszter showed up wearing Robocop sunglasses, and basically the rehearsal ended right there. If there’s something I’d love to talk about, it’s that The Reunification of the Two Koreas has been a really interesting experience for me. I think in Hungary this performance is much more appreciated than here. I’ve thought a lot about this since we went on tour with it. Based on that, there must be a difference between Hungarian and Transylvanian theatre. I’m not exactly sure what it is or why, it’s more of a feeling. For some reason, the performance just works over there. At all three venues we visited, the audience was very appreciative — we were soaring. In Miskolc, we didn’t feel it went so well — the audience sat quietly throughout — but even then, we got kind comments afterwards saying how much they loved the show.
Last night the curtains were raised, the first applause was heard and this year's UNSCENE festival began. And now, at 9 a.m. the next morning, with coffee in hand and with a mild stage addiction, we're trying to piece together exactly what performances we saw on opening day, how many friends we hugged, and with how many glasses of wine we toasted to non-art.
On the opening day, there were 5 performances: at 3 p.m., the festival opened with an exhibition by puppetry-students from UAT Târgu Mureș, entitled Puppetry is not a child's toy, but a genre! This was followed by the one girl show of Henrietta Csüdöm, 1715380.ms (UBB, Cluj-Napoca, Acting, MA, second year), followed by the dance performance Awakening (BBTE, Cluj-Napoca, Acting, BA, third year), New Genesis (BBTE, Cluj-Napoca, Acting, MA, first year), which has been very popular for two years now, and finally The Reunification of the Two Koreas (UAT, Târgu Mureș, Acting, MA, second year).
Unfortunately, we missed the exhibition due to the sudden arrival and the rush to get to our accommodation. Henrietta Csüdöm's solo performance was about femininity, its difficulties and about liberation. It was a thrilling, sensual performance that followed the story of an erotic masseuse girl as she goes from dreamy young adult to prostitute. The actress interacted with the audience, making provocative comments about women, while maintaining eye contact with the (not only female) members of the audience. Well, that's what you get for sitting in the front row, but if you're a spectator, don't be surprised if...
The Awakening left me very confused. I can always appreciate when acting students don't bring a non-classical performance to a festival, experimenting with new forms instead. Well, these students did exactly that, but unfortunately the end result for me was not what I expected. However, after the second performance, I started to discover the thread that connects all the performances of the day. The erotic scenes were particularly powerful and memorable: their intensity and sensitivity made them stand out from the performance and create real theatrical moments.
And speaking of all the sexual tension, the highlight was clearly New Genesis. The aesthetic elaboration, the consistency and the amount of work put in really showed through in the performance. I had a conversation with one of my teachers once about how to describe someone(s) who is beautiful or attractive. I think it should go like this: the actors are all beautiful, my jaw dropped. Unfortunately, I had to leave the performance before its end (I waited until all the boys had taken off their shirts though) because I had to rush over to The Reunification of the two Koreas to help with the subtitles.
I got there in time, but as usual, the technology refused to collaborate. At the beginning of the second act, I saw a small sign on the TV: "Your TV will be turned off in 1 minute...". I said, okay, it's not going to turn off anyway. It turned off. I bravely decided to turn it back on. It threw me into the main menu, so everyone watched as I scrolled between Netflix and YouTube to bring back the subtitles. Needless to say, I failed.
Léna Barna