As a war correspondent, Ferenc Molnár wrote about what he saw on the front. Then in 1916 he wrote a play, The White Cloud, based on his experiences. The world of Molnár’s play was determined by the realities of the First World War, and to make the era vivid for audiences today, director Attila Vidnyánszky and his colleagues made a prelude entitled Black Sky on the folly of the war. In it, they bring to life the emperor, the Hungarian foot-soldier, the active artist, the war-widow, the orphaned child, the war-time brothels, and the music halls of the gentlemen in the hinterland. This dance macabre brings us to Molnár’s work, in which children meet with their fathers, who fell in battle, on the white cloud. With this production, the National Theatre offers sad commemoration of the outbreak of the First World War 100 years ago.