- Playbill
- Gallery
- Video
- Press
Directed by: Andrej Visky
Set and costume design: Zsófia Gábor
Adaptation: Benji Horváth, after Euripides and Ted Hughes
Dramaturgy: Johanna Bertóti
Music: Péter Visky
Movement coordinator: Hunor-József Varga
Assistant director: Levente Imecs-Magdó
Lights and sound: Júlia Sipos
Cast:
ALCESTIS – Emőke Pál
ADMETOS – Levente Imecs-Magdó
APOLLO – Áron Sárosi (in former cast Hunor-József Varga)
DEATH – Emese Erdei (in former cast Orsolya Veres)
HERACLES – Zsolt Csepei
SERVANT – Rebeka Kolcza
Synopsis:
Admetus, the king of Pheraea, has to die young, but Apollo, who is serving a previous sentence at the king’s house, convinces the goddesses of fate that if a relative will take the death in his place, he can be saved. The only one willing to make this sacrifice is Alcestis, the wife of Admetus. This is the tragedy. But then Heracles appears, with all sorts of unexpected surprises up his sleeve. This is the comedy.
Premiere date: 27th of May, 2022, 7 pm
Premiere venue: ZIZ art and social area, Paris street nr. 5-7, Cluj
The project has financed by the AFCN, Bethlen Gábor Fund, Ördögkatlan Festival and EMMI, and the Communitas Fundation.
Balázs Urbán: Changing Perspectives
in szinhaz.net, 30th August 2023
“Andrej Visky mixes creatively tools from different sources of modern theatre (…) that serve to shock, to create tension, to maintain the audience’s attention. As do the otherwise dynamic, dedicated performances of the actors’, from which the two extreme poles fortunately stand out: the theatrical inhibition – in a good sense of the concept – of Varga Hunor József, who plays Apollo with overwhelming energy, and the intensity of the acting presence of Emőke Pál, who gives a suggestive sense of the desperate loneliness of Alcestis.”
Tamás Toót-Holló: The Mysterious Death of Alcestis: Self-sacrifice or Transformation?
in Magyar Nemzet, 13th May 2023
“Well, the adaptation by Előd Horváth Benjámin and the mise-en-scene by Andrej Visky, avoids all unnecessary pathos and mythological dilemmas, openly strives to answer the main questions of the modern man. Not accepting any lofty nonsense in place of real answers that are still valid today. The question, above all other questions, is, of course, what tradition, what psychological impulse, could have led Alcestis to take the terrible decision to give her life in order to spare her husband’s life, even at the cost of leaving her two children motherless.”
Norbert Pacsó: The Tragical Comedy of Alcestis
in Szabadság, 14th February 2023
“In essence, the performance tests the audience’s psychological comfort with its randomness, its impermanence and the many stimuli that hit the audience at once. Despite the comedy, the atmosphere was somehow oppressive, since it is a woman’s self-sacrifice, partly out of necessity, that is at the centre of the play.”
