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Based upon texts by Svetlana Alexievichi (Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster) and Wladimir Tchertkoff (The Crime of Chernobyl: The Nuclear Gulag).
Directed by: Cosmin Matei
Dramaturgy: Raluca Sas-Marinescu
Featuring: Maja Sebők, Emőke Pál, Tímea Udvari, Levente Imecs-Magdó, Zsolt Csepei, András Hatházi, Júlia Sipos
First run: 17 ianuarie 2017, ZUG (str. Traian nr. 40-42, Cluj-Napoca)
Synopsis:
“It’s easy to slip on banalities, especially on banalities of incomprehensible things. (…) The mind can absorb just a certain rate of horror, before it shuts down defensively. Based on such a logic, when the danger exceeds our imagination, we deduce that the danger itself is not real. (…) The time of secrets has passed. Chernobyl changed it. (…) You don’t care at all if I love you a week or two, or my whole life?”
Festival and tour participation:
May 10, 2018: Reacting Chernobyl tour, Bethlen Téri Theater – Budapest, HU
May 9, 2018: Reacting Chernobyl tour, ALTERRA Old Synagoge – Szeged, HU
May 8, 2018: Reacting Chernobyl tour, Szigligeti Studio – Oradea
December 8, 2017: 3×3 Tour, Csiky Gergely Hungarian State Theatre – Timișoara
November 8, 2017: Temps D’Images, ZUG – Cluj-Napoca
November 3, 2017: D-Butan-T 2017, Andrei Mureșanu Theatre – Sfântu Gheorghe
October 21, 2017: 12th edition of the Colloquium of Ethnic Minority Theatre, Figura Stúdió Theatre – Gheorgheni
September 21, 2017: Tranzit Feszt, Nord Theatre – Satu Mare
September 12, 2017: International Theatre Festival (FIT), Aureliu Manea Theatre – Turda
Project funded by AFCN.

Set construction time: 4 hours
Set decomposition time: 1 hours
Lights:
2 PAR 1000W
1 Profil Spot 550W
3 PC 1000W
10 PC 650W
2 Halogen 2000W
1 Halogen 1000W
Lighting desk
Sound:
2 active speaker (min. 300W)
1 wireless microphone
1 min. 2 channel mixer
Other:
2 video projektors
1 desk
Photos by Bethlendi Tamás.
Miruna Runcan: New Dramatic Structures, Negotiable Imaginary Spaces. On Assuming the Experimental Condition
Studia UBB Dramatica, November 6th , 2017
“A performance which is demanding up to exhaustion for the high-performance actors, as well as inquisitive and challenging for the audience – a performance worth watching at least twice, I think. Because its daring originality requires a profound participation, above and beyond the immediate circumstances.”
Győrfi Kata: Should they hug their beloved ones, or not?
Helikon, April 07th, 2017
“What makes the production more than just a simple gesture that awakens the spectator from his profound political and historical dream is the game and the playfulness of the show. Between the sometimes too scientific and incomprehensible layers of the show it intertwines conceptually, but above all because of the nature of the Váróterem’s actors: the freedom. (…) The acting is rather physical and action-based, in which we assume that the body-soul dichotomy is dissolved, and the qualities of the stage presence become inseparable: the body and the spirit are in one and the same game.”
Boros Kinga: Communist Armageddon
szinhaz.net, March 21st , 2017
“Disturbing stories are spoken of as information: the acting game can not connect to these stories, because the actor must be careful not to be trampled during the game. The creators’ intention can be felt: a very refined contrast should be born, a counterpoint that hinders the soul, but does not allow for liberating consolation. ”
Alexandra Dima: Reacting Chernobyl – People’s game…
revistacultura.ro, March 16th , 2017
“However, seemingly inadequate to the subject is, in my view, the most successful part of the show: the discourse about death is drowned in childish laughter, and the gravity of the situations represented is lost in an almost continuous, exhausting gymnastics for both actors and those from the room. There is, therefore, a double play: on one hand, the one in the so-called fictitious space, to which the pace of the action is adapted, and on the other, the one in which the spectator himself wakes up trained and which involves distributing the attention in a way that the buffoonery and the story are being watched simultaneously. ”
Kulcsár Árpád: Let’s play nuclear catastrophy
multikult.transindex.ro, March 03rd , 2017
“The director succeeds only with the help of movements, bodies, words, to increase the tension on the narrow band between the spectators and the actors. In unexpected situations, the actors ask questions from the audience or start a debate about something or interleave dialogues that, after the Chernobyl jokes and the scene full of black humor, have a brutal effect. ”
Széman Emese Rózsa: Instead of review – Reacting Chernobyl
Facebook, February 24th , 2017
“I have always felt that the show is talking about me, or at least it addresses me personally. It is true that I entered the room with the conviction that this issue concerns me. Besides, this is the biggest thing a show can achieve, even if in my case, my relationship with Chernobyl was relevant. I do not know what the show looks like from a totally outward perspective. But then again, who is not really related to the subject? “