Mrs. Karnyó 12
The play is a fine Grotesque fairy-farce, perhaps the first in Hungarian dramatic literature. While Csokonai’s 18th-century play bears traces of the absurd, alongside the mirth and merriment it also touches with merciless satire on the very relevant social problems of today, addressing conflicts that are humorous in part because they are all too familiar. We are in a store in Eastern Europe that is full of empty boxes, where there is nothing left but debt. We see the remains of a grocery store that has been overrun with rats and flies, a store we think is valuable, though it is not. After the “tragic” catastrophe, the fairy-redemption begins…