Péter Kárpáti: Map of the Otherworld
A dramatic extract from the author's book of the same title
"By the way, wild flowers are not wild flowers, only we did not breed them: the gardeners were the bees. Year after year, by the millions, they picked the petals and rolled around in a foamy sea of pollen. Wildflowers are the aesthetics of bees. But there's a catch. We humans cannot see the wildflower, our eyes simply cannot see it. Our retinas do not perceive it. The colour of the bee's purple, for example. We perceive just as much of it as the bee in the Talmud does when it buzzes overhead. But some people see even less of the wildflower than we do. You know who? The wildflower. It has no eyes. It cannot see. He doesn't even know what it is to be seen. She is the blind beauty queen. The winner of a deadly beauty contest who has no idea what beauty is."
Schedule
Immanuel Lőw, Chief Rabbi of Szeged, shows Jászai Mari his little Garden of Eden, a greenhouse with flowers from the Holy Land. They walk and talk, unaware that someone is hiding behind the giant cactus. He sits there and peers, holding his breath...
In 2023, Péter Kárpáti's book of his life's work was published under the title Map of the Otherworld, with a selection of his plays and a new novel. Born from a dramatic chapter of the novel, the play not only unfolds a hitherto unknown, mysterious episode in the life of Jászai Mari, but is also a deeply personal confession.
Trafó House of Contemporary Arts
The Trafó House of Contemporary Arts in Budapest is a unique venue in Hungary, embedded in the international contemporary scene, where different genres - theatre, dance, new circus, music and visual arts - are presented in a unique and authentic way.