Kárpáti Péter és barátai: Rühes kutya

“Péter Kárpáti’s latest performance draws us, unnoticed and in an entertaining way, into a sacred space from which we can only escape by delving into the very depths of our own value system.

It is through this unique formal language that the performance becomes truly sacred, imbued with a visionary power. The unflinching honesty and clarity of confession meet the ethereal quality of the form.

We see perfectly calibrated dynamics, a set stripped down to almost nothing, and a production that thus focuses intensely on the actors’ performances. An enormous burden rests on the actors, which they all bear with ease.” (Bálint Keszte, revizoronline.hu)

“Péter Kárpáti and his friends seem to thumb their noses at traditional stage representation; they shake off so-called ‘acting,’ placing the story at the center—narration as a tool and a gesture. They use the clean, empty space with captivating subtlety.” (Zsófia Molnár, Élet és Irodalom)

“Our starting point is the marshland world of the folk tales from Karcs, collected by Géza Nagy. An ethnographic Galápagos: in this isolated region of Bodrogköz, familiar stories have evolved in different, unknown directions. The world of these tales is strangely profound, and every plot 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—terrifying stories that, as told here, could not have happened, yet something certainly did.

“It might be something much more terrifying and mundane.” (Péter Kárpáti)

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 support from the European Union’s Creative Europe program, and Pro Cultura Urbis

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