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helver's night - Actor Theater Košicehelver's night
helverova noc
The Actor Theatre, Košice brings the play Helver’s Night by Helmar Villqist to our festival. The performance presents Helver and Klara’s evening spent together in the Europe of the 1930s, while civil war is raging around them. Their controversially beautiful and mysterious relationship is the only handhold for both of them. The woman takes care of the man with mental problems, and as the crowd gets turbulently unstable out there, they are trapped in their kitchen that is only seemingly a safe haven. Gradually, we learn more about who they are and what really connects them.
‘They gave you to me. Only that we must visit that clinic of ours once every three months and answer the questions and riddles... So that they don’t take you away from me again. Though, when we go tomorrow, because we’ll be going together, everything will be alright.’
Creators
trailer
Focus scene
Reviews
‘The performance does not concretise the plot in time or place, but it feels very much in tune with the present war-time. The tension between the intimate inner space and the threatening outside world with its noises is tangible throughout the performance. Helver, mocked and ignored by his peers, is flustered by the thought that he too could be taken into battle and become a soldier. He does not see the hatred in the name of which he is being subjected, nor the cruelty of the commander who is being brutal to others without moral restraint. In Frantisek Balog's suggestive portrayal, the excited Helver recounts to his foster mother with childlike honesty what he has witnessed. In the role of the foster mother, Diana Semanová gives a fine portrayal of the woman who loves Helver, with a love that was meant for her own child and in spite of everything.’
SZINHAZ.NET‘František Balog, playing Helver, is superb in his portrayal of the character in which we see mental vulnerability and a fascist militant zeal intertwined. And as Klára, his foster mother, Diana Semanová carefully reveals the suffering fate of a woman.’
SZINHAZ.NETMaterials to read
excerpts from the playphoto credits
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1-5: ©Alina Vincze_Frantisek Balogh, Diana Semanová