George Tabori

Requiem for a Spy


Studio

Murdoch
Áron Dimény
 
Zucker
Zsolt Bogdán
 
Maggie
Enikő Györgyjakab

directed by
Mihai Măniuțiu
 
set and costume design
Adrian Damian
 
music composed by
Șerban Ursachi
 
choreography
Vava Ștefănescu
 
stage manager
Zsolt Györffy
 
prompter
Emőke Bodor

Date of the opening: June 01, 2015
Date of opening: 12 June 2015

Duration: 1h 20' without intermission.

Beckett’s Vladimir and Estragon, the Marx brothers, Cruella de Vil, Buster Keaton,  Berlin vaudevilles from the twenties of the last century, secret service agents, pseudo-psychiatrists, feminist divas, angelic monsters and angels with demonic inclinations – they are all here, mingling, mixing in George Tabori’s grotesquely comical and ravishingly carnival-like world.
From an actor’s point of view, Requiem for an Agent is a treasure trove. The role plays – during which the three super agents enter a mad maelstrom of identity-changes – confuse, but also charm the audience. Still, the theme of the play is not superficial at all. The three super agents fought shoulder to shoulder throughout the Second World War against the Nazis, but at some stage it seems that one of them turned traitor in order to save his life. One of them... But which one? They all survived although, based on the stories that they tell from their different perspectives, in normal circumstances none of them should have stayed alive. They meet each other again after many years, in the same mysterious way they used to meet in their former conspiratorial meeting places, during the cataclysm. Their aim is to find out the truth – or maybe they want to hide it? As happens in almost every Tabori drama, the guiding thread of the farce is interwoven with the threads of the police investigation, the play mixing black humour with psychological drama and psychoanalytical comedy.
Murdoch, Zucker and Maggie – one play with three actors. Or perhaps with twelve? Let's count them: Murdoch, Anti-Murdoch, Murdoch-Zucker, Murdoch-Maggie, Zucker, Anti-Zucker, Zucker-Murdoch, Zucker-Maggie, Maggie, Anti-Maggie, Maggie-Zucker, Maggie-Murdoch. Yes, it's a twelve character drama, at least when played by the excellent actors of the Hungarian Theatre of Cluj, Enikő Györgyjakab, Zsolt Bogdán and Áron Dimény.