As soon as I enter the auditorium, I notice the enormous masks in the theater boxes: Marx and Engels on the left, Lenin on the right side of the stage. They fit perfectly with the title of the performance: Marx’s Capital. This lavish production by the National Theatre of Budapest was accompanied by a wave of criticism, as several people—including the head of the Institute for Communist Studies—were convinced that it would glorify Marxist ideology. Quite the opposite: Attila Vidnyánszky’s staging is an indictment of communism. It invites the audience to reflect on the consequences of the ideas propagated by Marx.
The text, co-written with playwright Réka Szabó, also quotes from Marx’s correspondence with Engels, speeches by Lenin and Stalin, and even the Bible. At first glance, the production appears straightforward: we find ourselves in a courtroom. The defendants are Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, and Mátyás Rákosi—the communist leader of Hungary from 1948 to 1956. We, the audience, form the jury. Within the red-and-black set design, reminiscent of an ancient Greek theater, sit the defense and the prosecution. At the beginning of the performance, the prosecutor asks whether there are proletarians, oligarchs, exploited workers, or prostitutes in the audience. The audience laughs, but participates: several spectators raise their hands.
Yet this is no ordinary trial. The multilayered production also incorporates elements from Agón, a play by composer and philosopher Péter Pál Józsa, which depicts humanity’s spiritual struggle in search of meaning and redemption. The story being told, which also includes passages from the Gospel of John, increasingly gravitates toward a religious dimension. The breaking of the seven seals, marking the beginning of apocalyptic events unleashed by the Lamb of God, is announced by a little girl in a white dress.
The flood of visual stimuli makes it difficult to process the substantial amount of text. On stage are bundles of money, a lamb wrapped in a black funeral shroud, and a piano hanging from the ceiling. Numerous nineteenth-century figures are quoted through video projections. Mao Zedong, Brezhnev, Ceaușescu, and other dictators who emerged from Marx’s ideas appear as Matryoshka dolls. A live orchestra—with a child drummer—completes the stage action. Red ribbons are thrown into the audience. The acting is flawless, but after a while the viewer can easily lose the thread.
Despite its carefully outlined premise, the nearly four-hour performance gradually abandons its own rules over the course of the evening. References to the influence of Marx’s work on the present are not long in coming: the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York, fake news, and excessive globalization are all mentioned. At one point, the prosecutor wears a MAGA cap and speaks like Donald Trump. Lenin and Stalin frequently take selfies with young people, and the photos are projected onto a screen in the background. Toward the end, Adolf Hitler appears at the front of the stage. Saint John seems defeated, hanging crookedly from the ceiling. Hell breaks loose on stage: dressed in women’s clothing and sporting devil tails, the quintet of defendants sings and dances amid machine-gun fire and images of tanks. In the end, judgment is entrusted to Jesus Christ.
“The German philosopher’s work is essentially only a pretext for taking stock of the origins of principles that today often remain unquestioned and give rise to social phenomena such as cancel culture or wokeness,” says the creator of this spectacular production.
Reflections on Human Relationships
Marx’s Capital was part of the 13th edition of the MITEM festival (Madách International Theatre Meeting), held from April 10 to May 11. Since its founding in 2014, MITEM has become 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 contemporary “Europe in a state of emergency.” The program included works by Sophocles, Molière, Voltaire, Gogol, and Chekhov.
One of MITEM’s defining characteristics is its geographical diversity. Productions from Paris, Barcelona, Antwerp, Tbilisi, Zakopane, Belgrade, Bucharest, Plovdiv, Skopje, and Leeuwarden were featured. Ukraine was represented by Gogol’s The Government Inspector – Ревізор, a co-production of the National Theatre of Budapest and the Hungarian Transcarpathian Regional Theatre of Berehove (directed by Attila Vidnyánszky Jr.). Russia, meanwhile, was represented through Tatar institutions. The corn of My Soul was part of MITEM’s section dedicated to ethnic and linguistic minorities.
The title of the production by the Galiasgar Kamal Tatar State Academic Theatre in Kazan refers to the way Chekhov addressed Lydia Mizinova—known as Lika—in his letters. It is well known that the plot of The Seagull was based on events from Lika’s life. The two met in 1889. He was twenty-nine, she nineteen. Their friendship was reflected in a correspondence that has long inspired speculation about the true nature of their feelings for one another. Directed by Farid Bikchantaev, the play is based on this correspondence, transformed by fourteen young actors into an ironic and humorous story about the fleeting nature of happiness. Originally a graduation production by acting students, it has since entered the theater’s repertoire. Seven identically dressed men represent Chekhov. Seven women embody Lika. The cold of the Russian winter is ingeniously portrayed through coats and jackets that at times nearly crush Lika beneath their weight. The production is energetic and well structured. The actors and music together create a vivid stage language.
As part of the Serbian-Hungarian cultural season, the psychological family drama The Aquarium was also presented. Written by the young playwright Nina Plavanjac, who also directed the production at the National Theatre of Subotica, the play tells the story of three generations of women who pass negative life patterns from mother to daughter. They are abandoned by their husbands and condemned to raise their children alone. The youngest woman attempts to break with this legacy by moving abroad and choosing not to marry, although she enters into a relationship with a married man who is also her superior. Forced to return to her parents’ apartment after her mother, suffering from dementia, is discharged from a care home, mother and daughter finally confront one another after years of silence.
Past and present merge harmoniously in Nina Plavanjac’s production. On stage stands a cube with transparent walls, inside which the two women engage in dialogue. Outside, ghosts of the past linger: the nursing home caregiver (who also plays the grandmother), the husband who died of alcoholism, and another missing daughter. When the mother collapses, two opposing walls of the cube move inward, as if crushing the women. The mother joins the ghosts. The daughter remains alone in the now-darkened space. Fish swimming in all directions are projected onto the walls. The inheritance of suffering appears broken, and life’s harmony restored.
A Masterpiece on Diversity and Identity
Among the 26 productions presented by 21 theaters from 15 countries were several that placed the body and rhythm at the center of their artistic expression. A striking example was Pinocchio. What Is a Person?, presented by Teatro di Napoli and Interno5 from Naples. It addressed one of the festival’s central questions: What does it mean to be human today, after the catastrophes of the past centuries? In Davide Iodice’s adaptation and staging, Carlo Collodi’s story is reinterpreted as a mirror of contemporary society.
Through this unusual performance, Iodice raises numerous questions. The protagonists on the otherwise empty stage are young people with various forms of neurodiversity: Down syndrome, autism spectrum disorder, Williams syndrome, and Asperger syndrome. They are accompanied by figures wearing donkey, rabbit, and fox masks. A large cross, to which books about prejudice and discrimination have been nailed, is carried by a talking cricket that nearly collapses under the weight. One by one, parent-child pairs emerge from a circle dance and introduce themselves to the audience. The parents then place a “Pinocchio” nose on their beloved child. One of these Pinocchios cannot walk; another dreams of having a girlfriend, a driver’s license, or a theater of his own. From the very first exchange of words, magic ignites like a spark from a Blue Fairy’s wand. Amid logs and candles, dreamlike processions of mothers and fairies, this captivating production retells the story of the world’s most famous puppet—and does so from the perspective of those who suffer the most. Pinocchio. What Is a Person? reveals the body’s potential as a unique instrument of storytelling.
MITEM showcased the distinctive artistic signatures of its participating creators while also making visible the diversity of artistic positions active in Europe today. The curatorial concept linked the individual works into a shared space in which they entered into dialogue with one another, creating entirely new thematic connections. Whether through documentary theater or physically driven performances, the focus remained on how we perceive the world, how time becomes visible, and how spaces can be transformed or reimagined.
By Irina Wolf
(June 5, 2026)
(09 June 2026)