PIONEER'S HEART
based on Daniela Kapitanová's
The Book of the Cemetery
March 2018
Örkény István Theater
PLAYED BY Kriszta Bíró
DIRECTOR Zita Szenteczki
DRAMATURG Barbara Ari-Nagy
SCENERY AND COSTUME Nóra Juhász
MUSICIAN Árpád Kákonyi
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR Ariadne Érdi
PROMPTER Zita Kanizsay
"My dad didn't like Czechs, Hungarians, Russians, Jews, Communists, Gypsies, marches, pioneers, the Socialist Youth League, the Defence League, the Revolutionary Trade Union, That means so-called. My dad always said that the communists were so-called. And he even listened to Free Europe, even though it was so forbidden at the time that it was just a joke. I told Dr. Karol Gunár that my dad listened to Szabadeuropa, so that it wouldn't be a problem that I didn't tell him. Dr Gunár Karol TudSzocDr Gunár praised me very much and forgave my dad for listening to Szabadeurópa in the sense that Dr Gunár TudSzocDr Gunár was very good. "Samko Tále, authorDaniela Kapitáňová's novel is about Samko Tále, a 44-year-old, slightly mentally handicapped, dwarf-like man. Samko grows up in Komárom, Slovakia, in the 1970s and 1980s, where he drives around the city in his Tolycocci all day long, collecting paper. Since childhood, he has done nothing but try to conform to the rules of normality - the majority that excludes all that is different or unusual - and become a conscientious informer who reports to the authorities even after the system has disappeared into the mire of history. Little by little, Samko's grotesque tales of destruction reveal the portrait of the 'little man', whose familiar mentality has not changed with the demise of socialism.
Photos by Judit Horváth