Those Wild & Crazy Hungarians

Nate and I decided to go out to the Dublin Theatre Festival over the weekend. There was a play that I'd really really wanted to see - The Exonerated, about inmates on death row who were . . . well, exonerated. The play was apparently written from verbatim interviews and court documents of actual cases in the US - and one of the actresses was an actual exonerated inmate. Amazing. Of course, this play was completely sold out, with no hope of acquiring tickets. What to do?

So, we decided to gamble and see something else. We chose a Hungarian production called Rattledanddisappeared, or Ledarálnakeltűntem in its native language. I saw the cover photo on the program (pictured above) and thought, "That looks interesting!" It looked like something a little off-the-beaten-path, so we thought we'd give it a try.

Interesting is an egregiously mild way of describing what we saw. Wow. Perhaps “wacked out” is a more accurate phrase for what we experienced. Or maybe “1984 on cocaine and ecstasy” is yet another way to put it. The three-hour performance was all in Hungarian with infrequent English subtitles. Featuring broadway tunes, rap, breakdancing, a lady with her umbilical cord still attached, a guy eating poop, a dominatrix, a random alien, a guy on the gymnastics rings, and vague references to a linear plot, it was definitely a shock to the system. I was so blown away I had to write about it to get my mind around it. Here are some pictures, just so I can share a little of our experience:

This old naked dude came onto the scene after the main character got intimate with the umbilical-cord lady.

Here, our main character, after being put into a blender, is rebirthed into another universe. He's about ready to get up and go surfing. Does that make any sense to you? Well, wouldn't you go surfing after being put into a blender and then being rebirthed into a new universe? Don't tell me you wouldn't.

Crazy stuff. Nate loved it. Which was good, because I was thinking I'd never get him to go to a play with me ever again. Then, after 24 hours and lots of thinking and reminiscing, I decided I too enjoyed it. Even if I still don't have a clue of what happened. Not what I expected, but it definitely had an impact on me – as is evidenced by my need to ruminate on it here. (Insert dubious head shake) Whatever. Time to move on!