day three – you either do or you don’t 

At the first show of the day I am sitting on a cushion five centimetres from the stage. I look down. In the corner of the white floor mat I see a paintbrush, blue paint and some miniature figurines in and around a boat, drowning. I can already tell the show will be about migrants and in this case the drowning figurines are, painfully, not a spoiler. In fact, all props and elements of the show are set out on the stage, like scenes spread out on a tablecloth waiting to be animated. I thoroughly enjoy that the creators didn’t choose to foreground what happens, but how it happens. After all, we already know what happens to migrants. I impatiently wait for my paintbrush to get its moment in the spotlight and am not disappointed. All figurines and objects laid out on the mat eventually get their turn. Everything is predetermined. Like fate? Like theatre? 

I simply couldn’t get a ticket to Once Upon a Time in Novi Sad as the show was completely sold out. It’s no surprise as the company has toured in Timisoara four times already and was always very well received. I begrudgingly sit in the hall of the theatre, but I can hear some of the show through the thin doors. Musical numbers, loud yells, then the iconic melodies of a Hungarian operetta. My curiosity reaches its peak so I work up the courage to quietly sneak in without a ticket or a seat to at least catch a glimpse of the show. I am met with a packed house and an unapologetically kitsch cabaret setup with a live band among sparkling palm trees and a man singing something about buffalos? I feel wonderfully lost, but I am grinning ear to ear. Made by theatre makers about theatre makers with a multitude of inside jokes the show really hits home and I am left to wonder how much these topics resonate with the general public. Thankfully, during the artist talk we find out that all representations are completely sold out. I am glad. My thoughts keep circling back to a clever example in which the text blends humour with the painful reality of theatre’s position in today’s society: do actresses wear their own underwear on stage or is it paid for by the taxpayer? 

Réka Dálnoky

Photocredit: Cornel Putan