The Tragedy
of Man
(Az Ember Trajédiája)

Based on Imre Madách's work
Directed by László Hudi (Hungary)

Written and performed by Júlia Bársony, Krisztina Birtalan, Adrien Deli, Réka Gévai, András Lang, Isabelle Lé, Zsolt Móninger, Erika Pereszlényi, Elzbieta Sulykó, Iván Tabeira, Balázs Vajna

Set and lighting György Árvai
Costumes Gabriella Simon
Video compilation Eszter Poroszlai

Premiere: September 9, 1999 in the Sophiensaele as part of the Berliner Festspiele, Berlin

Coproduction Compagnie Mozgó Ház (Budapest, Hungary),
Berliner Festspiele (Berlin, Germany), Festival d'Avignon (France),
TRAFó (Budapest, Hungary), Budapest Autumn Festival (Hungary),
Sophiensaele (Berlin, Germany), THEOREM (association supported by the Culture 2000 programme of the European Union)

This masterpiece of Hungarian literature, written in 1861, reverses Genesis: Adam and Eve no longer create the history of man, they traverse it under Lucifer's guidance. They travel all over Ancient Egypt and Ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, Constantinople of the crusades, Kepler's Prague , Revolutionary Paris, industrial London, a socialist phalanstery and a society of Inuits where man reverts to to imitating animal behaviour.
Mozgó Ház (Moving House) have not been unduly faithful in their adaptation of this masterpiece, in their synthesis of different ways of being and thinking.
They present History through a great variety of spectacular forms: music-hall, live video, recorded images (news, fictions, scientific images), blended with the re-mixed sounds of live house music… This performance fusion, drawing on stereotypes from the worls of politics and TV, gives birth to a performance that is both fragmentary and total.
The show toured all over Europe from 9 September 1999 - 27 July 2000 : 37 performances in 7 European countries (Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Belgium, France, The Netherlands and Hungary).