Local services
Csokonai National Theatre is offering the below plays arriving on the stage with English subtitles.
12 November, 13 December – Samuel Beckett: Waiting for Godot (drama) with English subtitles
Every ten years, István Szabó K. directs Samuel Beckett’s now-classic piece. According to his own admission, this piece acts as a type of reference point for him when it comes to understanding and digesting a period of waiting. While his 2004 production explored the absurdity of meaningless waiting, the 2014 adaptation examined the painful process of waiting for unavoidable annihilation; in 2024, the emphasis shifts to the search for identity—probing individual and collective memory in the hope of divine restitution.
Director: István Szabó K.
Location:Csokonai Forum, Kóti Árpád stage
Age group:16+
Tickets:https://jegymester.hu/production/122085/godot-t-varva/12007664
20 November, 2 December – Kiss Csaba: Dangerous Liaisons with English subtitles
“Never fall in love!”—with this apparently unkeepable bit of advice, Choderlos de Laclos’ character, Vicomte de Valmont, firmly established himself in literary history. Valmont is one of the protagonists in Dangerous Liaisons, a novel that has spawned numerous film and theatre adaptations. For him, being in love goes against his basic nature: he enjoys causing pain, deception, and corrupting innocent people. This is especially true when he meets a “worthy” companion in the Marquise de Merteuil, who, for a time, appears to be the ideal partner in the vicomte’s loveless machinations. However, this is just temporary.
Duration:120 minutes, with intermission
Location:Csokonai Forum, Kóti Árpád stage
Age group:18+
Tickets:https://jegy.csokonaiszinhaz.hu/production/121976/csokonai-forum-veszedelmes-viszonyok
26 November, 16 December – Zsolt Győrei – Csaba Schlachtovszky: Erkel and the Revolt (musical comedy in 2 acts) with English subtitles
Few people know how close we were to winning the War of Independence early on, in the autumn of 1848. This musical comedy, directed by Zalán Zakariás, builds on those memorable moments. If the Szarvas Tavern in Gyula had kidnapped Marshal Radetzky’s daughter, the lady of the Wenckheim Castle, the imperial army would have stopped fighting right away. But life does not follow a script, and nothing is easy. Thus, our protagonist, Ferenc Erkel, willingly gives up his goal of rest to salvage what he can, caught in the crossfire of conspirators and the obsessive plans of the newly crowned, eighteen-year-old Emperor Franz Joseph.
Duration:140 minutes, one intermission
Location:Csokonai Forum, Latinovits Zoltán stage
Tickets: https://jegymester.hu/production/122091/erkel-es-a-felkeles/12007657
28 November – Szilárd Borbély: The Dispossessed (drama) with English subtitles
Bálint Botos’ direction, which properly catches the spirit of poet Szilárd Borbély’s first and only novel, which unfortunately died precisely ten years ago, depicts the absence of freedom and its desperate yearning. This takes place in a village that fears and gives safety, remembers yet readily forgets. It is both realistic and surreal, sad and optimistic, brutal and compassionate.
Szilárd Borbély depicts the very grounded reality of a struggling family in a small village on the Great Hungarian Plain, as well as a multi-layered, complex world: the mysterious rivers flowing beneath the village, and possibly all of Eastern Europe’s forgotten, impoverished, struggling poor. Here, reality blends with poetry as smoothly as the stories concealed in
Duration:1 hour 40 minutes with one intermission
Location:Csokonai Forum, Kóti Árpád stage
Tickets: https://jegy.csokonaiszinhaz.hu/production/121970/csokonai-forum-nincstelenek/12007660
19 December – Lionel Bart: Oliver! (musical) with English subtitles
We are all familiar with the tale of the impoverished orphan boy from the beloved book by Charles Dickens. Lionel Bart’s sensational play transports audiences to 19th-century London and brings the fascinating adventures of Oliver Twist to life as a musical. We, the viewers, can follow Oliver’s journey from the orphanage to a band where young troublemakers persuade him to participate in robberies, to becoming a sensible child who finds peace in orderly conditions, as his troubled life finally improves while he is growing up in the turbulent world of Victorian England.
Director: Tóth Tünde
Location:Csokonai Theatre
Tickets: https://jegymester.hu/production/122084/oliver/12007742
Date: November – December 2024
Location:Csokonai National Theatre
Source:csokonaiszinhaz.hu/en