The story of a witch hunt which infects a village in our production takes place in an imagined world: a cold, wild region, where the ground is frozen and all walk about in furs. Life is governed by the merciless laws of the struggle for day-to-day survival – a severe but at the same time wonderful world; full of magic, witches, spirits. The piece’s characters are each in their own way possessed, prisoners of their own problems and goals. This blindedness is what prevents them from realising in time what is happening to them and through them, and which prevents them from stopping the machinery drawing them inexorably towards tragedy. Thus a quotidian, human story – jealousy, romantic drama, envy – produces an apocalypse that overturns the order of the world. Orphans beg in the utterly depraved village’s streets; animals roam, ownerless; the village’s inhabitants are either dead or live on with unbearable burdens on their conscience.

CAST

John Proctor: Zoltán Mucsi 
Elisabeth Proctor: Lia Pokorny 
Abigél Vihola: Annamária Láng
Reverend Herdal: József Szarvas 
Reverend Halvaholla: József Gyabronka 
Lieutenant Governor Thorkill: Sándor Csányi 
Angel Pullmann: Tünde Murányi 
Tomás Pullmann: Gergő Kaszás 
Rebeka Holle / Kullerva Eskimo slave: Eszter Csákányi 
Marja Voran: Lilla Sárosdi 
Gábriel Koret: Sándor Terhes 
Judge Borberg: Gergely Bánki 
Borge Herdál: Nóra Parti 
Léna Mattila: Judit Cseh 
Márta Koret: Borbála Péterfy 
Mózes Torn: András Vinnai 
Baltazár Kormakúr: Zsolt Nagy
Soldiers: Gábor Rácz, Zsolt Hipszki

Directed by Árpád Schilling
Assistant to the director: Eszter Gyulay
Set design by Márton Ágh
Costume design by Klára Varga
Light design by Tamás Bányai
Dramaturgy by Anna Veress
Props: Róbert Noszlopi
Music by László Melis
Costume assistant: Julcsi Kiss
Musical correpetitor: Gyula Kisvárdai
Lights: Áron Kovács

Photo: Mátyás Erdély

PRESS

• György Karsai: Sötét titkok rejtegetői. Criticai Lapok, 2001/2.
   
• Jean-François Bouthors: Arpad Schilling met sa rage en scène. La Croix, 02. 10. 2001.