Crisis Trilogy III: The Priestess
Krétakör [Hungary]
Text, Direction: Árpád Schilling [Hungary]
October 27 (Sat) – October 30 (Tue) Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre, Theatre East
FESTIVAL/TOKYO
Performing Arts Festival launching from Tokyo
About
Since its founding in 1995 Hungarian theatre company Krétakör has continued to make revolutionary theatre work and draw attention from all over the European theatre world. The "Crisis Trilogy" is the result of the groupʼs 3-year hiatus taken at the peak of its success in 2008, and the final part of the series, "Crisis Trilogy III: The Priestess" now comes to Festival/Tokyo.
"Crisis Trilogy" has been created with the collaboration of theatre education professionals, sociologists and media artists, traversing film, opera and theatre in a crossover experiment attempting to grasp the dilemmas and contradictions of society through unique methodologies of theatre education. The third part looks at the disparity between the city and the provinces, at school education, ethnicity, religion and politics. Intertwining the diverse problems of eastern European regional communities, Krétakör engaged with the questions in workshops with local youngsters.
"The artist who does not search or influence society cannot be called an artist," says Krétakör director Árpád Schilling. In 2008, after receiving many awards, he turned down numerous offers and decided to stop directing classical texts. Seeking out a more immediate theatre methodology, he went with new members of his company to the provinces of Hungary and Romania. "The Priestess" was created through this new experiment with 15 children of Hungarian and Romanian descent over several weeks of workshops. The participating children each have their own varying personal histories against a backdrop of complex ethnic issues. Krétakör aimed not to deny these different worldviews but rather to co-exist with them, creating a polyphonic performance. Confronting the realities of discrimination and violence latent in home and school life, the workshops debated larger community problems to germinate self-awareness in the youngsters as members of a collective. Krétakör saw the new possibilities here for theatre as a community activity.
The setting for the story is a remote Transylvanian village where many so-called "Gypsy" Romany people live, a community divided by poverty and disparity. Into this world appears a former actress from Budapest as the childrenʼs new drama teacher. This energetic and enthusiastic woman begins to work with her students through theatre to confront the dilemmas enveloping their families and community. But the pedagogue and her new experiment encounter a critical response from others, including her fellow teachers, some students and the priests who conduct religious education. The play is both a fictional story involving a former actress becoming a drama teacher, while also weaving the real experiences of the workshops that the children and Krétakör carried out. On stage, the violence and prejudices of their daily community there revealed in the workshops will be re-enacted. There are also interviews with villagers and footage of the village scenery, projecting multiple perspectives on the problems of regional society. The individuals will speak to the audiences about the conflicts in their lives and debate with them, faithfully representing the realities of the community in the very presence of the young children on stage.
Transylvania is an area stretching across where the borders of southern Hungary and Romania meet. As a vital crossroads for east-west trade, it has been governed by many different peoples and countries since ancient times. For this reason the region now is multi-ethnic and multi-linguistic. In recent years and following the World Wars, it has become part of Romania. Today we can see a distinct culture of diversity in the commingling of Hungarian, Romanian and other ethnic groups, as well as a range of social problems, such as deep-rooted racial discrimination.
The "Crisis Trilogy" is composed of 3 different stories told by 3 different media. The main characters are a family in Budapest: a former actress who moves to Romania to work as a drama teacher, and her husband and son. Using the means of theatre, opera and film, the trilogy paints a microcosm of all the dilemmas of contemporary Europe.
"Crisis Trilogy" "Crisis Trilogy I: JP.CO.DE" Premiere: June 2011, Prague Quadrennial "Crisis Trilogy II: Ungrateful Bastards" Premiere: July 2011, July 2011, Munich Opera Festival "Crisis Trilogy III: The Priestess" Premiere: October 2011, Budapest Trafó House of Contemporary Art
