BORN: EMESE WÁGNER
April 2023
Manna Produkció - Szentendrei Teátrum - Füge Produkció
Tünde Szalontay is a mysterious, hidden actress. Yet now she tells us about her life.
As a young adult, she discovers a shocking family secret. While living abroad and working in an exciting and inspiring artistic environment in her twenties, she discovers that she was adopted by parents she thought were her own and that she spent the first six months of her life in a children's home. It is a shocking realisation, but suddenly everything becomes clear. She understands where the inexplicable sense of alienation that has accompanied her throughout her life, the endless loneliness of childhood, the inability to connect, the overwhelming anxiety of "who am I?" all stem from: he is an adopted child. An untrue, unwanted, abandoned perpetual infant. A long, painful, sometimes absurd search for the birth mother and the origin begins, so that he can begin to breathe and live.
The search for identity in adulthood, the incomprehensible experiences of childhood, an existence that is difficult to express in words and stigmatised by mystery, are presented with spectacular movement, songs and music, dreamlike images, original and guest texts.
The performance boldly alternates absurd humour with more poetic scenes, bringing the audience closer to the personalities of the story, without lightening its weight.
Tünde is sometimes a white clown, sometimes a diva, sometimes a baby, sometimes Francesca Woodman, but above all - and this is the bravest and most difficult task - she is herself. Emese Wágner was born.
"The show is a surreal journey from a lonely childhood through a frenetic search for adulthood to recovery. The play is not text-centred, but it includes contemporary prose excerpts, poems by Anna Szabó T., personal confessions, psychological definitions. There are also songs, and chapters reminiscent of Pina Bausch's dance play, which interpret and deepen information, and are sometimes quite humorous.
Performed by Tünde Szalontay
Choreographer: Krisztián Gergye
Composer: Péter Zombola
Dramaturge: Zsigó Anna
Sight: Krisztián Gergye and Zita Szenteczki
Video by László Dinea
Lighting by Ádám Langó
Production Manager: Anna Gáspár
Assistant Director: Lili Lujza Szirtes
Director: Zita Szenteczki
Francesca Woodmann's photographs inspired the visual world of the performance.
Sponsors: NKA, Manna
Photo by Anett Kállai - Tóth
DURATION OF THE PERFORMANCE
65 minutes
DATE OF PERFORMANCE
2023.05.07.
