An almost three hundred and fifty-year-old play in verse. A moral problem on which the plot turns. A strange, bitter character, the misanthrope who talks about outdated things and is fighting against the world – which is perfectly functioning, thus confirms his existence – in a completely outdated way. A love that, with its irrationality, unsettles a meticulously built internal system. Confrontation of two ways of seeing the world, a ridiculous fall, an exodus into nowhere. This is Molière's comedy, The Misanthrope.

This is what we intend to talk about in a world where we also look for consistency, responsibility, and clear value judgment.

And since nothing is ever black or white, we insert the plot into a closed and special environment where the moral and human questions raised by the piece may accrue new shades: a homosexual community. In our performance, this social group, which is still considered as a subculture and viewed with prejudice, appears as a natural medium in which problems are primarily human.

We find that the distinction between good and bad in everyday life is limited in the distancing or in the ultimate liberalism. However, we hope that a Misanthrope set in the homosexual community will help the spectator to understand the raised moral problems in their universality. The appearance of 'being different' is no provocation, no proclamation, no attention-seeking, no fashion, no rarity. It is only a starting point from which our perspective can be broader.

We would like to be quite sharp about hypocrisy, betrayal, lies, fraud. That is why we push the molière-situation further and observe Alceste's struggle between an irrational love and his own solid and rational moral system. However, this extremism is cutthroat and ridiculous at the same time.

WEBPAGE of the performance (Hungarian) here

CAST

Alceste: Zoltán Mucsi
Célimène: Roland Rába
Philinte: József Gyabronka
Arsinoé: Eszter Csákányi
Oronte: Scherer Péter
Éliante: Gergely Bánki
Clitandre: László Katona
Acaste: Attila Tóth

Set design by Márton Ágh
Costume design by Fruzsina Nagy
Assistant to the costume designer: Julcsi Kiss
Light design by Tamás Bányai
Music by Kristóf Darvas
Mask: Zsuzsa Rudolf
Dramaturgy by Barbara Ari-Nagy
Assistant to the director: Péter Tóth
Technical team: Lajos Bódi, András Éltető, Géza Kolozsvári, Miklós Mervel
Production manager: Balázs Erős

Directed by Árpád Schilling

Thanks to András Forgách and Anna Lengyel

Photo: Bence Kovács

PRESS

• Tamás Koltai: Az emberszerető. Élet és Irodalom, 19. 03. 2004.
   
• Judit Csáki: "Ez a világ rohad". Magyar Narancs, 25. 03. 2004. 
   
• Edit Agyagási: Különös Mizantróp. Népszabadság, 12. 03. 2004. (interview)