A coproduction between Vígszínház and Sputnik Shipping Company 

The corrupt officials of a small Hungarian town, headed by the Mayor, react with terror to the news that an incognito inspector will soon be arriving in their town to investigate them. The flurry of activity to cover up their considerable misdeeds is interrupted by the report that a suspicious person has arrived two weeks previously from the capital… 

Sputnik Shipping Company

One of the flagship independent companies in Hungary Sputnik was founded in January 2008 and led by Viktor Bodó as an independent theatre, which due to a complex set of issues threatening the independent theatre scene in Hungary, was dissolved in March 2015.

For this company ’Sputnik’ symbolised motion into the unknown, with the risk of failure and explosion, but also the opportunity to discover something new and wonderful.

Sputnik strived to build and sustain a new theatre workshop environment based on experience gained in institutional, conventional theatrical routine. They seeked to establish a form of extra-institutional theatrical existence that facilitates reflective and high-standard workflow. They considered the nurturing of free creative processes, experimentation, and the research and revision of theatrical idioms just as important as the performance of classics and contemporary works alike.

They tried to strike a balance between retaining their mobility and thinking inside the box. They ’merely’ seeked to become freer and less constrained.

That after a seven-year success story they had to pull the plug, was a tragic blow to the Hungarian independent scene.

Viktor Bodó remains one of the most popular Hungarian directors, a resident director formerly of Schauspiel Graz, now the Vienna Volkstheater under Anna Badora, he works all over the German-speaking theatre and is the holder of numerous international awards.

Vígszínház

One of the most prestigious dramatic theatres in Hungary, Vígszínház, founded in 1896, and still is considered as one of the most important cultural institutions in Hungary. Its devoted ensemble works to create a balance between traditional values and modern creativity. Vígszínház is a people’s theatre and an art theatre at the same time, with a standard company of actors, which performs classical and contemporary, foreign and Hungarian dramas of a wide range of genre and types. The Vígszínház repertoire is exciting, and sensitive to social problems of the time and society and attracts a large audience. The theatre have had a long tradition to host famed foreign productions and internationally acclaimed artists, like Pina Bausch, Claus Peymann, Peter Brook, Maurice Béjart, the National Theatre of Cluj, the Cameri Theatre of Tel Aviv, John Malkovich in The Confessions of a Serial Killer and the Eifman Balett from St. Petersburg.

Vígszínház has toured all over the world, like on the BITEF, Belgrade, The Seoul Festival of World National Theatres and in Dublin, in Vienna, in Berlin, in Prague, in Pilsen, in Bratislava, in Novi Sad etc.

In 2014 they co-produced with the National Theatre, Prague and the Slovak National Theatre Bratislava the show 1914 directed by Robert Wilson. The performance received many invitaitons from all over the world and highly acknowledged both by the experts and the audience.

Lighting design: tamás bányai
Set design: juli balázs
Costume design: fruzsina nagy
Choreography: máté hegymegi
Music: klaus von heydenaber
Sound effects: gábor keresztes, alex hunyadi
Dramaturg: krisztina kovács, júlia róbert
Assistant to the director: beáta pintér
Directed by viktor bodó