Kárpáti Péter és barátai: Rühes kutya

“A friend of mine told me I had a choice: either go crazy or start running. You have to do something to love yourself again. You run in the rain, the mud splashes, your body weakens, a blister bursts, your nose runs, branches slap your face, and finally you feel alive—your back aches, your knees sting, it’s brutal! Your glutes are on fire, it hurts in places you didn’t even know existed. No, I don’t believe this! The body is tearing apart, one last great fit of rage, and then purification. There is no forgiveness in life, but here, here it is!” (Scabby Dog, excerpt)

“Our starting point is the marshland of the folk tales of Karcsa (collected by Géza Nagy). An ethnographic Galápagos: in this isolated region of Bodrogköz, over the centuries, the familiar stories have evolved in different, unknown directions. The world of these tales is strangely profound and visionary, and every twist carries immense dramatic weight.

I have retained only a sentence or two from the original. Our space-time is today’s worn-out, rural Hungary. We utter disjointed, self-contradictory confessions—such horrific stories that, as they are told here, could not have happened, yet something certainly did. Perhaps something far more horrific and mundane.” (Péter Kárpáti)

Péter Kárpáti is a playwright, director, teacher, and true theater maker. His most recent production, a dramatic adaptation of his collected works titled Map of the Afterlife, was also staged at Trafó. "The Mange-Ridden Dog" is her latest play; for the production based on it, she is collaborating with Lilla Barna, Tibor Boda, Anna Hámor, Ábel Horváth, Natasa Stork, Gáspár Téri, Brigitta Varga, Veronika Keresztesová, and Ákos Lengyel Papa.

Cast: Natasa Stork, Gáspár Téri, Lilla Barna, Tibor Boda, Anna Hámor, Ábel Horváth

Music: Ábel Horváth

Dramaturg: Anna Hámor

Costumes: Veronika Keresztesová

Sound, Lighting: Ákos Papa Lengyel

Production Manager: Brigitta Varga (Magnum)

Writer, Director: Péter Kárpáti

Special thanks to Réka Somorjai, Júlia Annamária Simon, Rebeka Módosi, and Sándor Zsótér!

Co-production: Trafó House of Contemporary Arts

Supported by: STAGES (Sustainable Theatre Alliance for a Green Environmental Shift), with the support of the European Union’s Creative Europe program, Pro Cultura Urbis

Our performances were realized with financial support from the Pro Cultura Urbis Public Foundation and the Independent Performing Arts Fund.