“I Want Silence” and Other Works by Zsolt Csalog
Performance, Lecture, and Discussion, in the Framework of the Program Series “Csalog25”
6:00 p.m. Andrea Fullajtár, the monodrama “I want silence” and other works by Zsolt Csalog – reading
Written by: Zsolt Csalog Written by: Zsolt Csalog
Performed by Andrea Fullajtár
“When a writer writes, he usually relies on his imagination or builds on fragments of his personal memories. I have a poor memory and I don’t think much of my imagination: I prefer to work from a living model. I write ‘documentaries’, drawing portraits of existing, individual figures. This female figure, Etelka, who speaks up here—if I have done my job well—she is lifelike and very much like the homeless woman living among us, whom I met in Budapest and who told me stories and let me in on the drama of her life: this real ‘story’ was written by the two of us.
Why she, Etelka, opened up to me, I can only guess. She obviously wanted to escape from her maddening loneliness by sharing the story of her dead-end life with me. But why am I trying to tell Etelka’s story? I know the answer: I want to break through the cold wall that more and more excludes these people from our everyday civil life, the ever-increasing number of the victims of our common life who are vegetating around us. How much of their cruel fate is their ‘own fault’ and how much is the result of the shameful sins of the rest of us, the successful survivors, is perhaps the lesser question. The more important and urgent task is to expose their wounds and recruit help for them. It is the only honorable way to behave.” (Zsolt Csalog)
Creators: Viktor Nagy, director Gábor Zsámbéki
7:00 p.m. Zsolt Csalog. A lecture by Márton Soltész
The backbone of Zsolt Csalog’s legacy is a collection of his writings and research papers, manuscripts and typescripts. After his death in 1997, this legacy passed to his widow, Eva Bognár, who died in 2015. The writer's documents were acquired by the National Széchényi Library in the early 2000s. Márton Soltész, a young researcher at the library, began processing the 75 boxes of documents in 2013. Since October 2014, the entire collection has been available for research in the Manuscript Repository of the OSZK, under Fond 445. Márton Soltész extended his doctoral research, which originally focused on the narratological and authorship issues of Zsolt Csalog’s writings, with a biographical study during the process of organizing his documents. 2015 saw the publication of a volume entitled Zsolt Csalog. More extensive than a monograph, it included his personal biography and a detailed archival list as well as a list of Csalog’s publications. It was published by Athenaeum.
8:00 p.m. Following the performance, Júlia Váradi will have a conversation with Andrea Fullajtár and Márton Soltész on the podium.
Venue: Pinceszínház 1093 Budapest, Török Pál utca 3.
Please register at regisztracio@pinceszinhaz.hu.
The Program is in Hungarian.
In the framework of the Csalog25 program series.