Those We Will Never Be Again
What happens when someone can breathe only with the help of a machine—yet feels that telling the story of their life is more important than anything else? One thing is certain: Ferenc Aszalós took part in the pogrom that took place in Hajdúvágás in 1956. But what becomes of human memory when it is chained to a hospital bed, and how does someone else—who is also fleeing their own past—listen to a patient suffering from helplessness?
Schedule
A nurse. A young man. His routine is exact and his movements precise, yet something stirs in him when Ferenc Aszalós—the elderly patient confined to an iron lung—makes an unexpected request. He asks for a tape recorder: not to listen to music, but to confess. To record something that could never before be spoken aloud. A past? A crime? A fate?
Decades later, Bálint Lente finds only the cassette tapes in the abandoned lung sanatorium. But he decides not merely to listen to the story. He begins to investigate, trying to uncover the system of repressed traumas and the complex relations between guilt, responsibility, silence, and speech. Yet more and more questions arise—and fewer and fewer clear answers remain.
This production is a double journey: one conjures the documented past; the other takes place here and now, with us and Bálint Lente, amid the risk of reinterpretation. As past and present slide into one another, something may be revealed about us too: that we are all, in some small way, Bálints. Seekers. Listeners. Witnesses.
The production was created in co-production with the Orlai Production Office.
Please note when purchasing tickets that our chamber theatre’s seating area uses tiered platforms rather than conventional chairs. Seats are marked by cushions placed on the platforms.
Budapest Puppet Theatre
Budapest Puppet Theatre dates back more than 70 years, and generations have grown up with its performances. We have had great eras, emblematic performances, and have been able to respond to the changes and cultural influences that have surrounded us. We are the only established theatre in Budapest that specialized in the genre of puppetry.
