Our Secrets premiered in 2013 in Budapest. The play is set in the early 1980s in Hungary, during the time of communist oppression and general surveillance. Members of an amateur dance group, devoted to Hungarian folk music and dancing, appear as friends, but intimately they differ considerably from one another. Almost every one of them has a special »secret« of their own, guarding it carefully, or rather, exploiting it for their political and career-oriented goals.
István cohabits with Kata and her seven-year-old daughter Timiko. Their relationship is jeopardized when István realises he is a paedophile. Imre and Bea are an unmarried couple, living together with Imre’s young son from his first marriage, Ferike, who refuses to establish any meaningful connection with his stepmother. Imre runs an illegal printing press where an anti-government newsletter is printed. Unlike him, Bea is a devoted Communist party member, loyal to the system. When István confesses his paedophile inclination to Elvira, Imre's mother and a psychologist, it turns out that the eavesdropping devices have been installed in her flat. The Communist party finds out his secret. Szujó, his friend from the folklore group, is a mole, and István’s confession is now a launch pad to blackmail him. In no time he gives in and becomes a mole himself, betraying his friend Imre who is consequently tortured and arrested. But this is kept secret too. Eventually, István succumbs to the burdens of his paedophilia and treachery, and commits suicide.
When a new government takes over in the years to come, it transpires that the same villains and rogues, capable of surviving any political system, are actually still in power. All the lies, swept under the carpet for years, have remained intact and unresolved »our secrets«.
Born in 1970, Béla Pintér is a Hungarian playwright, director and actor of the middle generation. At the age of seventeen he joined an independent theatre company Arvisura as an actor, and subsequently performed in various ensembles. In 1998 he set up his own company Béla Pintér és Társulata (Béla Pintér and Company), abbreviated PBEST.
Since then, he has been writing plays for his theatre company. He directs and often acts in them. Hungarian theatre critics have awarded his productions with the best-staging-of-the-year prize four times. In 2002, he made an international breakthrough with his Peasant Opera. It toured the Vienna Festwochen festival, the New Plays from Europe biennale in Wiesbaden, the Euro-scene festival in Leipzig, the Berliner Festspiele, the Ex-Ponto Festival in Ljubljana. In 2014, Our Secrets produced by Béla Pintér és Társulata, was presented at the Slovenian Maribor Theatre Festival.
Translator Marjanca Mihelič
Director Nikola Zavišić
Dramaturg Tina Kosi
Set Designer Janja Valjarević
Costume Designer Mira Strnad
Stage Music and Music Arrangements Willem Miličević
Vocal Coaching Simon Dvoršak, Iztok Kocen
Choreographer Tamás Tuza
Language Consultant Jože Volk
Lighting Designers Nikola Zavišić, Jernej Repinšek
Cast
István Bán Balla Vojko Belšak
Dr. Elvira Szádeczky Jagoda
Kata Barbara Medvešček
Timike Živa Selan, guest performance
Bea Zakariás Manca Ogorevc
Imre Tatár Andrej Murenc
Ferenc Tatár Beti Strgar, guest performance
Szujó Aljoša Koltak
Singer Rastko Krošl
Waiter Igor Sancin
Comrade Pánczél Igor Žužek
Agí Jagoda
Konkoly Igor Sancin
Pogany Rastko Krošl
Borbíró Igor Sancin
Opening 13 September 2018
During the show the audience is seated on stage.
Performance duration: 2 hours. No interval.
Songs used in the production include Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough by Michael Jackson, Yes Sir, I Can Boogie by Rolf Soja and Frank Dostal, and Goldberg Variations by J. S. Bach.
Stage manager Zvezdana Kroflič Štrakl • Prompter Breda Dekleva • Lighting master Jernej Repinšek • Sound master Mitja Švener • Property master Manja Vadla • Front-of-house manager Branko Pilko • Hair stylists Marjana Sumrak, Andreja Veselak Pavlič • Wardrobe masters Melita Trojar, Mojca Panič • Head of construction Gregor Prah • Assistant technical manager Rajnhold Jelen • Technical manager Miha Peperko • General manager Tina Kosi, M. A.
