In 2000, we were invited to a friend’s house, along with a couple we hadn’t met before. The woman’s mother had recently passed away, and she had begun sorting through her papers. Her father had died earlier, and she had to deal with his papers as well. It turned out that her father had been married before, and a child had been born from that marriage—a half-brother whom no one had ever mentioned. Her father divorced so that his Christian wife and child would not be affected by Jewish laws; he sold the house, and with the money obtained, his ex-wife and child were able to emigrate, while he survived World War II by living in hiding in the country side. They never met again. The father remarried, and his first child died in South America as a teenager.

The next day I called the couple I had just met and asked their permission to write a play inspired by their story; they granted it. I was given a situation and a story independent of myself; I just had to find the concrete elements. I was given the date of July 24, 1941, the day the anti-Jewish law was enacted, the moment when the father decided to divorce. I read the newspapers, of course starting a few months earlier, to understand the process my characters were going through. I found it interesting that the blackout had already been ordered; moreover, it had been implemented in different places at different times, just like driving on the right side of the road; I am drawn to the grotesque coincidences produced by history. No writer can invent such nonsense; it can only happen in real life. The widow of a famous writer, who was famous herself, attacked me in Holmi after the play’s premiere—without mentioning my name, by the way—because I make such claims, since she remembers well, she wrote, that the blackout was introduced everywhere at the same time. I checked: the future widow of the future famous writer was still living in Transylvania at the time and had no idea what was happening in Budapest in the summer of ’41. I had no way of knowing either, of course; I was born five years later.

I was determined to stage a chamber play, an almost classical drama in the French style—that is, a highly stylized work—which is why I insisted on a certain ceremonial quality in the movements and gestures. I don’t like naturalism, and what I particularly detest is the fact that the actors shove and cuddle each other on stage. In the epilogue, I opened up the fixed form toward a not-so-bright future, which provoked some opposition at the Vígszínház, but László Marton, who directed the play for the second time, eventually understood that breaking the imitative and artificial form is functional.

Many scandals emerged from the parliamentary speeches, which were later denied. It also turned out that what happened in Hungary, on the island of peace, could have been foreseen, and many had indeed foreseen it.

Focusing on concrete details does not mean that the actor cannot create a poetic space on stage. As soon as highly elaborate phrases are spoken by living people, who stand with their tongues tied, almost motionless, the text comes alive, and the more stylized the performance is, the more likely this is to happen. This kind of text is meant to be performed, because in a short story or an essay it would be ineffective.

Discrimination by law existed before, and it exists still in many parts of the world, and the unwritten law, or custom, is usually stronger than the written law. I was captivated by the extremely dramatic situation of the story and had no intention of educating the audience. External law becomes internal law, and two people who sincerely love each other end up hating each other for good in an hour and a half. If the roles are played well, the audience is shaken to its core.

I don’t know if I would write it again if I heard this story for the first time now. Perhaps another form would come to mind, but in any case, I’m glad I was able to write a play of this kind back then.