Every year, MITEM in Hungary brings together international productions that combine classical and contemporary works, favouring experimentation with theatrical languages and unconventional perspectives on the present, subjecting today's world to analyses that are anything but comforting.

This article offers a critical dramaturgical reading of selected performances presented at the Madách 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.

Marx’s Capital was part of the 13th edition of the MITEM theatre festival (Madách International Theatre Meeting), which took place from April 10 to May 11. Since its founding in 2014, MITEM has established itself as a platform for dialogue between theatrical traditions and aesthetic approaches. This year’s festival opened with Shakespeare’s Richard III, directed by István Albu (Romania), and closed with another Richard III, directed by Itay Tiran (Israel). The concept “From Richard to Richard” was not merely a curatorial gesture, but also a reflection on today’s “Europe in a state of emergency.” The program included works by Sophocles, Molière, Voltaire, Gogol, and Chekhov, among others.