{"id":931,"date":"2026-05-25T17:51:45","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T17:51:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/33\/?p=931"},"modified":"2026-06-25T18:59:32","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T18:59:32","slug":"staging-instability-bodies-power-and-postdramatic-forms-at-mitem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/33\/staging-instability-bodies-power-and-postdramatic-forms-at-mitem\/","title":{"rendered":"Staging Instability: Bodies, Power, and Postdramatic Forms at MITEM"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Savas Patsalidis<\/strong>*<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Abstract<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

This article offers a critical dramaturgical reading of selected performances presented at the Mad\u00e1ch International Theatre Meeting (MITEM) in Budapest. Rather than functioning as a conventional festival report, it approaches the programme as a field of aesthetic and political tensions in which contemporary European theatre negotiates questions of identity, embodiment, and representation. Across a range of productions, from psychological realism to post-dramatic and corporeal performance practices, a recurring concern can be observed: the instability of identity and the shifting status of representational forms. The body appears not merely as a vehicle of expression, but as a primary site of meaning production, while structures of power are repeatedly reframed as fluid, relational, and performatively constituted. By tracing these dynamics across divergent dramaturgical models, the article argues that MITEM can be understood less as a platform of national representation and more as a space of aesthetic and epistemic negotiation. In this sense, theatre may be seen as a hybrid field in which language, image, and embodiment coexist without fixed hierarchy, suggesting a broader transformation in contemporary European theatrical sensibilities.

Keywords<\/strong>: festivals, National Theatre Budapest, psychological drama, traditional, modern, postdramatic, documentary, political<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

INTRODUCTION \u2014 The International as a Field of Negotiation<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

The Mad\u00e1ch International Theatre Meeting (MITEM), hosted every spring at the National Theatre of Budapest, has established itself since 2014 as one of the most prominent international theatre forums in Central Europe. With an explicit focus on intercultural exchange, the festival seeks to bring together different theatrical languages, aesthetics and traditions in a creative encounter, offering a mosaic of both classical and contemporary stage practices. Its emphasis on collaborations with national and regional theatres, primarily from Eastern Europe, but also from culturally diverse regions such as Japan, Vietnam, the Middle East, and Africa, reinforces this image of a polyphonic field of exchange.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the current historical moment, marked by increasing geopolitical tensions and cultural retrenchments, such festival spaces acquire an additional layer of significance, not only as platforms for the presentation of work, but as sites of encounter where theatre may function as a form of dialogue in contexts where public discourse is often polarised or strained. At the same time, the invocation of the international<\/em> cannot be taken as a self-evident value; rather, it constitutes an ongoing stake that concerns the very conditions of cultural encounter; it raises the questions of who becomes visible, under what circumstances, and through which aesthetic and institutional hierarchies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this sense, the international <\/em>does not simply refer to geographical representation, but also to the quality and conditions of exchange that are enacted. It is concerned with whether different theatrical languages meet on equal terms or are instead absorbed into pre-existing structures of cultural consumption. Within a dialogue that remains open and often asymmetrical, the festival can be seen not only as a site of coexistence, but also as a field where stage and cultural meanings are actively negotiated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From this perspective, MITEM operates not merely as an institutional platform for international productions, but also as a site of performative practice and the production of theatrical knowledge, where different forms of theatricality are tested, transformed and brought into dialogue. Interculturality thus appears not as a given condition, but as an ongoing process of negotiation.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Maurice (Zsolt Trill) and Helen (Nelli Sz\u0171cs) in the Queen of My Heart<\/em>. Costume designer Zsuzs\u00e1nna Cs. Kiss. Photo: Courtesy of MITEM Festival<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
Performing the Myth of Ageing: Narrative Identity and Embodied Memory in Queen of My Heart<\/em><\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

The production is a tragicomedy that focuses on ageing as the core of human experience, not merely as a biological fact, but also as a narrative construct through which the subject negotiates loss and impending decline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the centre of the story is Maurice, an 89-year-old former jeweler suffering from a serious illness, who remains committed to a promise allegedly made to him by Queen Elizabeth I some sixty years earlier to return for tea on his ninetieth birthday. This promise, never fully verified, functions as a personal survival myth, a narrative construction through which the subject preserves coherence in the face of the erosion of memory and reality. Throughout the performance, Maurice repeatedly returns to this story with a peculiar mixture of humour and absolute conviction, while the gaze of his wife Helena and the small pauses of the nurse Katy subtly expose the fragile balance between acceptance and silent doubt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The three characters form a fragile triangle of care. Their relationships are shaped, not through overt conflict, but through minor shifts conveyed by an averted glance, an unfinished sentence or a mechanically repeated gesture. Everyday life thus emerges as a central dramaturgical field in which love, exhaustion, and the need to sustain a shared narrative coexist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nicola McAuliffe\u2019s writing carefully balances humour and tragedy without slipping into emotional excess. This equilibrium is reinforced by Viktor Ryzhakov\u2019s direction, which opts for a restrained, inward-looking approach reminiscent of Konstantin Stanislavski\u2019s psychological realism and the understated dramaturgy of Anton Chekhov, where action does not erupt but accumulates, shifting the dramatic weight from event to the repetition of everyday gestures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The set by Csaba Csiki, with its worn furniture and faded colour palette, resembles a still life, a static pictorial composition activated by the entrance and movement of bodies. The characters\u2019 synchronised, repetitive steps generate a distinct rhythm that both signals the long-standing coexistence and embodied memory of their shared life and evokes the passage of time as a human pendulum measuring its own exhaustion. Lighting remains discreet, subtly shifting the emotional atmosphere without ever imposing itself.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Queen of My Heart<\/em>. Dramaturgy: Andr\u00e1s Kozm. Set design: Csaba Cs\u00edki. Photo: Courtesy of MITEM Festival<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The performances are marked by precision within this subdued framework. Maurice (Zsolt Trill) resists any sentimental idealisation of old age, constructing a character oscillating between fragility and stubborn attachment to his narrative. Helena (Neli Sz\u0171cs) delicately conveys her split experience of caring yet feeling the fatigue of repetition, while Katy (Anita Poly\u00e1k) functions as a stabilising presence, constantly re-anchoring body and reality in the present.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Katy, the \u201cnurse\u201d (Anita Poly\u00e1k), is constantly re-anchoring body and reality in the present.<\/em> Photo: Courtesy of MITEM Festival<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Of particular interest is the directorial decision to alter the ending of the play. Instead of the nurse assuming the role of the Queen, as in the original, the Queen herself appears on stage. This choice is initially disorienting, given that the performance has already prepared the audience for a different outcome, yet it ultimately adds an additional interpretative layer. It does not restore truth<\/em> but postpones it, transforming fantasy into scenic fact and, in turn, into a form of performative truth. The question is no longer whether the promise was real, but rather what kind of truth is produced by the very need for it.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Queen of My Heart<\/em>. Video design: Vladimir Gusev. Photo: Courtesy of MTEM Festival<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The production does not aim for aesthetic spectacle nor does it propose a radical scenic language. It operates within a familiar psychological realism, at times perhaps predictable, yet this choice proves consistent with the material; rather than forcing external intensity, it allows the work to unfold organically. The result is a production that does not simply offer a correct<\/em> representation of old age, but actively contributes to its re-signification, a gesture of particular relevance in a theatrical landscape that often privileges youth. From this perspective, the ageing body returns to the stage, not as symbol, but as a carrier of experience, memory and desire. The performance avoids easy answers and immediate emotional gratification; instead, it follows a more demanding path, remaining close to the ambiguity of human experience.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The Imaginary Invalid. <\/em>Translation:\u202fBogdan Popovi\u0107. Dramaturge:\u202fPeri\u0161a Peri\u0161i\u0107. Argan:\u202fIvan Bosilj\u010di\u0107 . B\u00e9line:\u202fSonja Kola\u010dari\u0107 . Toinette:\u202fAnastasija Mandi\u0107. Photo: Courtesy of MITEM Festival<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
Between Representation and Deconstruction: A Dramaturgy in Suspension in The Imaginary Invalid<\/em><\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Following a brief visit to Esztergom, where the monumental presence of the castle and basilica evokes a sense of historical stability, I attended The Imaginary Invalid<\/em> by Moli\u00e8re, staged in a reworked production by the National Theatre of Belgrade as part of the Hungarian\u2013Serbian Cultural Season. This juxtaposition establishes an intriguing frame of reception, moving from a stabilised historical temporality to a theatrical time that is deliberately deconstructed and reassembled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nikola Zavi\u0161i\u0107, a director with a marked inclination towards adaptations of classical texts, attempts to reinstate elements of the com\u00e9die-ballet that are often omitted in contemporary versions, such as the epilogue, the pastoral drama as an apology to Louis XIV and the musical-dance interludes. At the same time, the action is relocated to the backstage area, where the actors prepare for the fourth performance of the play on 17 February 1673, the day on which Moli\u00e8re himself, performing Argan, was already gravely ill.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The Imaginary Invalid<\/em>. Set designer Jelena Radovi\u0107. Photo: Courtesy of MITEM Festival<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The directorial concept seeks to transform this biographical irony into an interpretative key, activating a metatheatrical condition in which the play and its historicity coexist. However, in its stage realisation, metatheatre does not operate as an organising dramaturgical principle but remains at the level of a directorial device. The transitions between play and backstage remain blurred, without a clear distinction in style or function, resulting in a dual scenic reality that fails to achieve coherence or to produce a distinct interpretative horizon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In contrast to Queen of My Heart<\/em>, where scenic economy allows fantasy to acquire performative force and structure reception, here the multiplicity of levels does not generate a comparable sense of dramaturgical necessity. Performance does not produce an alternative truth but instead dissolves into a series of disconnected dramatic actions.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The Imaginary Invalid<\/em>. Costume designer \u202fSuna Ka\u017ei\u0107. Photo: Courtesy of MITEM Festival<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Similarly, the strong physicality of the actors and the fast-paced rhythm do not serve a clear dramaturgical direction. The use of burlesque as the primary aesthetic code ultimately proves to be the production\u2019s weakest point. Burlesque, as a form, requires precision, rhythm and a clear satirical target; here, however, these elements are not established. Rather than sharpening its critical edge, by exposing the mechanisms of hypochondria and medical authority, the excess instead absorbs the play\u2019s critical potential, turning it into a diffuse and dramaturgically unstable theatrical energy. In a contemporary context in which the body and health are increasingly regulated within cultural and social frameworks, a condition that could be read through the lens of biopolitics as envisioned by Michel Foucault and others, the production misses the opportunity to activate the play\u2019s relevance in meaningful contemporary terms.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The Imaginary Invalid.<\/em> Lighting designer Milan Kolarevi\u0107. Photo: Courtesy of MITEM Festival<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

At the level of individual components, Jelena Radovi\u0107\u2019s set design, with its use of mirrors, stands out as one of the more coherent choices, as it visually incorporates the audience and reinforces the metatheatrical dimension. However, this isolated success is not sufficient to counterbalance the overall dramaturgical vagueness. Argan, played by Ivan Bosilj\u010di\u0107, remains trapped within this condition, without a clear interpretative axis structuring his stage presence.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The cast ofThe Imaginary Invalid <\/em>taking their bow. Photo: Courtesy of MITEM Festival<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Overall, the performance oscillates between representation and deconstruction of the Moli\u00e8re universe without fully committing to either direction, occupying instead an intermediate state of aesthetic ambiguity that does not translate into dramaturgical intensity. The re-appropriation of a classical text presupposes a clear dramaturgical position and consistency in its realisation. Here, the intention remains legible, but it does not translate into scenic necessity. The result is a production that promises a new reading, without ultimately managing to substantiate it.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u010carna Kr\u0161ul and Zolt\u00e1n Kar\u00e1csonyi in The Rooster Stew.<\/em> Photo: Courtesy of MITEM Festival<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
Rehearsing Intimacy: The Rooster Stew<\/em><\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

The performance The Rooster Stew<\/em>, based on a short story by Milo\u0161 Radovi\u0107 and directed by J\u00e1nos Feledi for the Feledi Project \u2013 Asterion Project, is part of the work of a multinational ensemble that systematically explores the relationship between body, movement, image and transcultural references.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The title of the performance operates as a key interpretative device. The rooster symbolically evokes masculinity and domination, the voice that asserts itself without necessarily listening. The term stew<\/em>, on the other hand, suggests a process of fusion in which heterogeneous elements, such as characters, desires and traumas, coexist and are transformed into a unified entity whose elements are often indistinguishable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Hungarian title kanaripaprik\u00e1s<\/em> adds another layer, hinting that the relationship at stake concerns not only two individuals but also two cultural frameworks that collide and mutually inflect one another. In this sense, the rooster stew<\/em> becomes a metaphor for a relationship in which roles are not given in advance but are constructed and, at times, consumed<\/em>, so to speak, as intimacy and power become tightly interwoven.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the dramaturgical level, the performance focuses on a couple on the verge of marriage who attempt to rehearse their future life. Everyday scenes are repeated with slight variations, functioning as trials of roles that gradually solidify. The same actions return, for example, a serving gesture, an embrace or a withdrawal, each time subtly displaced, revealing the fractures beneath the surface of intimacy. In contrast to The Imaginary Invalid <\/em>(Le Malade imaginaire<\/em>) by Moli\u00e8re, where performativity remained dramaturgically unstable, here repetition and physical action function as a coherent mechanism for the production of meaning.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The Rooster Stew<\/em>. Set and costume design: Julcsi Kiss. Photo: Courtesy of MITEM Festival<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The relationship is thus revealed as a performative process, close in a sense to Erving Goffman\u2019s understanding of social roles, where identity does not pre-exist but is constituted through repeated practices. Within this framework, violence, primarily psychological, does not appear as an exception but as a gradually normalised condition. Role-playing functions simultaneously as a mechanism of intimacy and erosion, evoking dramaturgical affinities with Who\u2019s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?<\/em> and The Homecoming<\/em>, where power is articulated through underlying tensions, repetitions and silences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Feledi builds on this structure to construct an intensely physical experience. The choreography often pushes the bodies to the point of exhaustion, incorporating repeated movement sequences, collisions that begin as play and turn into tension, and touches that transform into rejection. If in Queen of my Heart<\/em>, for example, the body functioned as a bearer of memory within a subdued realist framework, here it becomes a field of intensity and repetitive decay, where experience is inscribed through conflict. In this sense, the performance approaches a form of theatre as articulated by Antonin Artaud, where meaning is not represented but inscribed in the body through intensity, rhythm and repetition. The performances by \u010carna Kr\u0161ul and Zolt\u00e1n Kar\u00e1csonyi maintain this delicate balance with rhythmic and dynamic precision but without slipping into expressive excess.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scenographically, Juli Kiss creates a sparse yet functional microcosm. Everyday objects, such as the small wooden structures suggesting children, a tray of coffees or a potted plant, gradually acquire dramaturgical weight. The familiarity generated by these elements slowly but steadily turns into an oppressive embrace where decay is not declared but experienced through duration.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u010carna Kr\u0161ul in The Rooster Stew. <\/em>Photo: Courtesy of MITEM Festival<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Overall, this is a restrained and direct performance that does not aim at spectacle or superficial innovation, but succeeds through economy of means in transforming the everyday life of a relationship into a field of existential inquiry. In doing so, it exemplifies how a transcultural stage practice can produce meaning not through the mere juxtaposition of heterogeneous elements, but through the embodied processing of shared experience. Using familiar materials, it illuminates a life cycle in which violence and the need for love coexist in a fragile equilibrium, leaving open the question of whether love is sufficient, or whether it ultimately constitutes yet another invention within the very game of roles.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Mary Stuart \/ Elisabeth I: Raluca Aprodu and Ofelia Popii in Mary Stuart<\/em>. Photo: Courtesy of MITEM Festival<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
Performativity of Power: Mary Stuart<\/em> Revisited (National Theatre Bucharest)<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Friedrich Schiller\u2019s classic play Mary Stuart<\/em> focuses on the confrontation between Mary, Queen of Scots, and Elizabeth I, a clash that unfolds into a dense drama of power with strong political and psychological dimensions. Where the classical theatrical text relies on rhetorical grandeur and historical distance, Robert Icke\u2019s adaptation introduces a contemporary, stripped-down aesthetic, shifting the emphasis from fate to process. The imagined encounter between Mary Stuart and Elizabeth I is no longer presented as a tragic culmination, but rather as a fragile, almost procedural negotiation of power.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Stage design: Helmut St\u00fcrmer. Photo: Courtesy of MITEM Festival<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

From the very first scene, where the assignment of the role of the queen appears to emerge through a public, almost ritualistic procedure, the central question of the performance is posed: does power belong to the person, or is it a role that can be assigned, transferred and revoked? At this point, the performance indirectly engages with issues of performativity that also run through the festival\u2019s earlier productions. If in The Rooster Stew<\/em> identity is constructed through repetition, here power is revealed as the outcome of a public, quasi-ritual enactment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The two queens are presented, not as fixed historical figures, but as opposing forces trapped within the same system. This is also reflected in their staged confrontations, where physical distance is constantly shifting; moments of proximity are abruptly followed by withdrawal, as if they are negotiating not only their political positions but also their very right to exist within the same space. Mary tests the limits of her political weakness while Elizabeth oscillates between public duty and private insecurity. One is imprisoned; the other is confined within her role.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The direction by Andrei \u0218erban is sparse yet highly precise. It avoids spectacle and focuses on the mechanics of conflict. The dialectical duels are marked by clarity and intensity, while the acting style, controlled, almost distanced, recalls a subtle Brechtian aesthetic in which the spectator is not invited to fully identify, but rather encouraged to observe and critically reflect. In contrast to Moli\u00e8re\u2019s The Imaginary Invalid<\/em>, where the multiplicity of levels failed to produce dramaturgical coherence, here each scenic device serves a clear organizing principle.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Mary Stuart.<\/em> Costume design: Andreea Gr\u0103mo\u0219teanu. Light design: Cristian Niculescu. Photo: Courtesy of MITEM Festival<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Scenography also plays a decisive role. The lighting design by Cristian Niculescu and the video projections by Andrei Cozlac do not function as decorative elements but actively intervene in the action, constructing an environment of constant surveillance. The revolving stage within Helmut St\u00fcrmer\u2019s intelligent set design is activated at key moments, making visible the fluidity of power relations. The contemporary costumes by Andreea Gr\u0103mo\u0219teanu further reinforce temporal displacement, bringing the conflict into direct dialogue with the present.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Video design of Mary Stuart<\/em>: Andrei Cozlac. Photo: Courtesy of MITEM Festival<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Within this framework, the performances of Raluca Aprodu (Mary Stuart) and Ofelia Popii (Elizabeth I) form the core of the production. Both actresses precisely articulate the complex composition of their roles, combining political strategy with internal fracture. Their confrontation is not only ideological but existential, as every utterance seems to challenge survival itself. Mary\u2019s final journey toward death acquires a cold tragic quality whose emotional impact is intensified precisely through restraint.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overall, the performance maintains remarkable dramaturgical coherence. It offers no easy answers or clear moral positions; both sides articulate equally convincing arguments, making any singular identification impossible. The spectator becomes a witness to a decision-making process in which the personal and the political are inextricably entangled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From this perspective, the performance reveals power as a mechanism that is not merely distributed but is also enacted and embodied, shaping and at times deforming identity itself. In an era in which political conflict is often reduced to simplistic binaries, the production insists on its complexity and ambiguity. It does not represent History as a closed narrative, but rather rearticulates it as an open field of judgment, and perhaps this is its most significant achievement: it leaves the spectator, not with the comfort of certainty, but with the discomfort of critical reflection.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Theo Smedes. Script writer and protagonist in the Birds. <\/em>Photo: Courtesy of MITEM Festival<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
When Form Fails to Fly: Birds <\/em>(Pier21 theatre company)<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

The performance Birds<\/em>, written by Bouke Oldenhof and directed by Theo Smedes, consciously explicitly from the conventions of dramatic narration, placing emphasis primarily on image, movement and the performative presence of the body. Its starting point is a loose narrative framework in which Mient (Theo Smedes) attempts to present his father\u2019s work on the birds of the Wadden region; however, the latter\u2019s absence forces him to take over the narration himself, along with the participation of the audience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite this promising premise, the performance does not succeed in developing it into a coherent dramaturgical proposition. The narrative framework remains largely pretextual, failing to evolve into a meaningful structuring device, while objects and image-based elements function primarily as descriptive tools rather than as components of a clearly articulated aesthetic or conceptual system. As a result, the production’s attempt to create an experiential form of theatre is not matched by a corresponding degree of dramaturgical coherence or intensity. The result is a performance that remains at the level of intention rather than realisation, without developing a distinct axis of theatrical necessity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even in relation to a younger audience, to which it is presumably addressed, the experience it offers does not effectively activate attention or imagination, and misses the opportunity to transform the simplicity of its structure into either internal tension or pedagogical inventiveness.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Set design of the Birds<\/em>: Freja Roelofs and Andr\u00e9 Kok. Photo: Courtesy of MITEM Festival<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Overall, this is a performance that remains at the level of rhetorical intention rather than theatrical necessity. The deconstruction of narrative and the emphasis on physicality and image are not supported by a coherent dramaturgical framework, resulting in a final performance event that lacks the density to function as a fully realised theatrical experience.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Karl Marx (Zolt\u00e1n R\u00e1t\u00f3ti), Friedrich Engels (Mikl\u00f3s H. Vecsei), Leni (J\u00f3zsef R\u00e1cz), Stalin, Hitler (L\u00e1szl\u00f3 Feh\u00e9r) in Marx\u2019s Capital.<\/em> Photo: Courtesy of MITEM Festival<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
Marx\u2019s Capital: <\/em><\/strong>The Dramaturgy of Excess (Nemzeti Sz\u00ednh\u00e1z \/ Hungarian National Theatre)<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Stage engagements with Karl Marx’s Capital are by no means new. Contemporary theatre has approached the text through a variety of adaptive strategies, typically concentrating on selected themes or episodes rather than attempting a totalising representation. For instance, Rimini Protokoll, in Karl Marx: Das Kapital, Erster Band<\/em>, adopt a lecture-performance format that narrows the material to selected aspects of contemporary experience. Similarly, Howard Zinn\u2019s Marx in Soho<\/em> operates through a monologic and direct communicative mode, while Katie Mitchell engages with Marxist theory through more selective conceptual frameworks. Across these examples, what emerges is a recurring dramaturgical concern with how extensive theoretical material can be structured for the stage through processes of condensation, emphasis, and reduction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Attila Vidny\u00e1nszky\u2019s stage reading of Marx\u2019s Capital<\/em> at the National Theatre of Budapest, the starting idea is based on the assumption that the processes and laws identified by Marx as defining features of emerging capitalism continue to be fully active in the present. This perspective frames contemporary reality as shaped by the dehumanising effects of a system governed by capital, and by the gradual erosion of stable ethical categories under economic pressure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is an ambitious undertaking: a stage transposition of a philosophical, economic and anthropological worldview that decisively shaped modernity, seeking to bring its internal contradictions and historical consequences into a theatrical framework. Yet at the level of its realisation, the question becomes how such ambition is given dramaturgical form. The central challenge of the production lies not in the scale of its ambition, but in the difficulty of giving that ambition a sufficiently focused dramaturgical structure. The text by Szab\u00f3 R\u00e9ka is constructed as an extensive collage of excerpts, quotations, biographical material on Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, historical references and aphorisms. While this accumulation of materials reflects the breadth of the project, it also tends to place essential and secondary elements on a similar level of emphasis. As a result, the dramaturgical flow occasionally appears dispersed rather than fully structured, making it difficult for the spectator to identify a clear interpretative axis throughout the performance.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Stage design of Marx\u2019s Capital:<\/em> K\u00e1zm\u00e9r T\u00f3th. Photo: Courtesy of MITEM Festval<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Working with this material, the directorial approach adopts an epic form, with clear references to the theatre of Bertolt Brecht, including distancing effects, theatricalised representation, and an emphasis on ideas rather than psychological character development. The performers function primarily as carriers of discourse, with the result that interpersonal relationships remain relatively schematic, while the dynamics between performers are not always given sufficient space to develop.\u00a0Consequently, the performance is structured less as a process of dramatic progression than as an articulation of ideas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, the production incorporates elements associated with postdramatic theatre, such as narrative fragmentation, the accumulation of heterogeneous materials, and the predominance of text and image over action. However, whereas postdramatic forms often generate alternative modes of coherence, the abundance of material occasionally risks producing a sense of opacity and perceptual fatigue. The various layers of content do not always coalesce into clearly identifiable dramaturgical trajectories, nor do they consistently acquire a compelling rhythmic momentum.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Jenny, Marx\u2019s wife: Kl\u00e1ri Varga m.v. Photo: Courtesy of MITEM Festival<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Vidny\u00e1nszky is clearly a director of experience and visual imagination, although in this production the richness of the stage vision is not always matched by an equivalent degree of dramaturgical restraint. The stage world is striking and densely layered, consisting of a kinetically charged tableau reminiscent of a Bosch-like universe, where revolutionary rhetoric coexists with its historical failure. Red dominates throughout, while Guly\u00e1s-Szab\u00f3 G\u00e1bor\u2019s music, both live and recorded, frequently operates in an ironic register, notably in the scene where Marx and Engels perform \u201cGreen Leaves of Summer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

K\u00e1zm\u00e9r T\u00f3th\u2019s set design, with its amphitheatrical arrangement, effectively serves the idea of theatre-as-courtroom, where ideological systems are symbolically put on trial. From the outset, the figures of Marx, Lenin, Engels and Stalin (Zolt\u00e1n Rat\u00f3ti, Mikl\u00f3s Vecsei, J\u00f3zsef R\u00e1cz and L\u00e1szl\u00f3 Feh\u00e9r) are established as key historical reference points. Yet, while this opening configuration generates strong expectations, the subsequent development does not always provide a comparable sense of dramaturgical progression. Rather than evolving through clearly marked shifts and accumulative tensions, the performance tends to unfold as a succession of episodic scenes and monologues.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The costumes for Marx\u2019s Capital<\/em>: Krisztina Berzsenyi. Photo: Courtesy of MITEM Festival<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

One particularly striking scene, which could potentially have functioned as a structural pillar, unfolds when a giant fan blows banknotes into the audience, offering a direct and legible image of the dominance of money. The idea is clear: in the face of capital, ideological and moral systems appear to lose their stability. Yet its stage realisation remains primarily at the level of display, without further dramaturgical elaboration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This tendency becomes most apparent in the finale, where the main characters successively articulate declarative, often moralising positions. Where one might expect condensation or a form of reversal, the performance tends instead towards explanation, further adding to an already saturated stage composition. The material is undoubtedly rich, though its dramaturgical processing remains somewhat uneven. The central issue is less the quantity of ideas than the degree of selection and reduction applied to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a result, Marx\u2019s Capital<\/em> appears as a spectacular yet fragmented theatrical palimpsest, in which the accumulation of meanings at times risks obscuring rather than clarifying its central questions. In this sense, the production does not falter because of its ambition, but rather because of the difficulty of translating that ambition into sustained dramatic articulation. While attempting to stage a grand narrative about the history and failure of a worldview, it occasionally reproduces it as a fragmented discourse.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Marx\u2019s Capital<\/em>. Photo: Courtesy of MITEM Festival<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Here, the reversal of the well-known dictum less is more <\/em>fully applies. However, the production embraces a postmodern less is bore, <\/em>resulting in an overdetermined stage universe where everything is too much. Quite simply, multiplicity generates more noise rather than complexity.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Tarsius\u2019 Dramaturgy: Ferran Carvajal, Lara D\u00edez Quintanilla. Photo: Courtesy of MITEM Festival<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
Tarsius: Bodies Under Pressure<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

My final theatre experience before leaving MITEM was attending the performance Tarsius<\/em>, conceived and dramaturgically developed by Lara D\u00edez Quintanilla, a co-production between the National Theatre of Catalonia and Teatres en Xarxa. It is a stage work that could prove particularly fruitful within pedagogical and theoretical discussions around youth, psychic pressure and contemporary breakdowns of communication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The title derives from the word for the small primate tarsius<\/em>, which under conditions of captivity exhibits disordered behaviour and an inability to adapt, functioning as an allegory for the disintegration of social and psychic balance under regimes of constraint. This metaphor opens up a framework of interpretation that concerns individual psychology as well as the very conditions under which behaviour is produced.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Tarsius.<\/em> Set design: Merc\u00e8 Lucchetti. Photo: Courtesy of MITEM Festival<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

On stage, six young people find themselves in a disoriented and at times hostile environment. Gradually, their coexistence shifts from parallel individual trajectories toward a fragile collective dynamic of tension. When conditions reach their limit, the experience of pressure becomes shared, without ever tipping into rhetorical or dramatic spectacle.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Tarsius.<\/em> Light design: Jaume Ventura. Photo: Courtesy of MITEM Festival<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The dramaturgical and directorial language combines realist fragments with existential and poetic inflections. The text remains sparse, fragmented, often breathless, while intensity is not expressed through climactic escalation but accumulates through repetition, silences, and bodily displacements. This approach evokes both the practices of Antonin Artaud and the choreographic theatre of Pina Bausch, where the body functions as the primary bearer of meaning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a stripped-down stage space, the intelligent and highly functional set design by Merc\u00e8 Lucchetti dominates, featuring a large cube, reminiscent of a constantly rotating Rubik\u2019s Cube, which each time reveals a different space of experience. This structure operates not only as a scenographic device but also as a metaphor for the difficulty of achieving balance between the individual pieces of identity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The performers move both around and within this structure, creating images that border on choreographic theatre. Scenes are often organised around collective actions, with bodies synchronising, colliding or withdrawing, tracing a continuous oscillation between the need for connection and the experience of estrangement. Within this dynamic, micro-mechanisms of control and pressure also emerge, permeating even the most intimate relationships, reminiscent of Michel Foucault\u2019s analyses of power.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The choreography of Tarsius<\/em> is signed by Ferran Carvajal in collaboration with the company. Photo: Courtesy of MITEM Festival<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The ensemble of young performers (Roger: Quim Gil, Carles: Daniel Mallorqu\u00edn, Marta: Carla Moix, T\u00e0nia: Gisel Morros, S\u00edgrid: Tamara Ndong, Adri\u00e0: Joan Llu\u00eds Terrassa) conveys pressure, confusion and gradual inner disintegration without resorting to excess. Their stage presences function less as fully developed psychological entities and more as carriers of experiences and states, a choice that reinforces the collective dimension of the work. The music remains supportive throughout, enriching the atmosphere without distracting from the core of the action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the performance is not without its limitations. The repetitive structure, while operating as a mechanism for embodying psychic entrapment, at times leads to dramaturgical stagnation, particularly towards the end, where the curve of intensity fails to rise accordingly. In addition, certain confessional monologic passages tend towards predictability, thereby weakening their potential radical edge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overall, Tarsius<\/em> constructs a coherent embodied experience in which interest shifts from linear narrative to the performative inscription of experience in the body. It does not seek to explain youth, but to render it perceptible as a state of instability, pressure and continuous negotiation. Rather than offering closure, it opens up questions, leaving the spectator with the sense of a stage act in which experience precedes interpretation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conclusion: The Stage as a Field of Instability<\/em><\/strong><\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Despite evident differences in aesthetic origins and an uneven distribution of artistic quality, the performances examined in this selection outline a recognisable contemporary profile of the festival. From the psychological realism of Queen of My Heart<\/em> to the deconstructive political language of Mary Stuart<\/em>, and from the body-centred structure of Tarsius<\/em> to the postdramatic reconfiguration of The Imaginary Invalid<\/em>, a recurring set of concerns becomes visible, focused on the instability of identity and the fragility of representational forms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Across these productions, the body appears not only as a medium of expression but as a primary site where meaning is produced and contested, at times fragile or deteriorating, at times collectively or politically charged. In parallel, power, whether political, familial, or symbolic, emerges less as a fixed structure than as a shifting relation, continuously renegotiated through performance itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this sense, the festival can be understood less as a neutral platform for national productions and more as a space of observation for broader aesthetic tendencies. What comes into view is a theatre increasingly oriented towards hybrid performative forms, in which text, body, and image coexist without stable hierarchy, and where meaning is generated through interaction rather than narrative closure. <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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*<\/a>Savas Patsalidis<\/strong> is Professor Emeritus in Theatre Studies at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, where he taught at the School of English for nearly thirty-five years. He has also taught at the Drama School of the National Theatre of Northern Greece, the Hellenic Open University, and the graduate programme of the Theatre Department of Aristotle University. He is the author of fourteen books on theatre and performance criticism\/theory and co-editor of thirteen more. His two-volume study Theatre, Society, Nation<\/em> (2010) received the First Prize for Best Theatre Study of the Year. His recent books include Theatre & Theory II: About Topoi, Utopias and Heterotopias<\/em> (2019) and Comedy\u2019s Encomium: The Seriousness of Laughter<\/em> (2022), both published by University Studio Press. He has also written extensively as a theatre critic. He serves on the Executive Committee of the Hellenic Association of Theatre and Performing Arts Critics, is a member of the curatorial team of the Forest International Festival, and is Editor-in-Chief of Critical Stages\/Sc\u00e8nes critiques<\/em>, the journal of the International Association of Theatre Critics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Copyright \u00a9<\/strong> 2026 Savas Patsalidis
Critical Stages\/Sc\u00e8nes critiques<\/em>, #33, June 2026
e-ISSN: 2409-7411<\/p>\n\n\n

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