Entitled Cupido, the play is practically a traditional conversation piece set in a swinger's club, a co-production of the Orkeny Theatre and independent companies and producers. The characters in the play, all representatives of contemporary Hungary, occupy the bored and corrupt upper class, which no longer has any human values. The "everyman" (or woman) is a kind of victim of the situation, with some remains of values like family, love, and morality. In his earlier works, Tasnadi managed to find a supple, organic form (generally verse) with which could make an abstraction, an alienation between form and content. He does not succeed this time. The play, although it has humor and good actors, is a somewhat simplified story of a couple. They visit a swinger's club, then become victims of their own helplessness, as well as the manipulation of others. As the play develops, the story becomes too obvious, plain, and self-evident, descending into stereotypes and demagogic simplification.

Tompa Andrea

Hungarian Theatre Critics Association