As usual for this company, the joy of acting and the professional skill domineered throughout the performance, the virtues of the artists from Budapest. (…) The dynamic direction is not mild to the audience. Hard scenes changing one another, show-effects, furthermore live music played by Erzsi Kiss and András Monori leave no time for meditation. The storyline breaks out with terrifying speed and after a hard night proceeds towards a horrible ending.
Helga Stöhr-Strauch
If this young director lived in Greece, we would never even think of letting him direct in Epidauros. The two-hour long play with no breaks tells the simple story, written with excellent sense of proportion, with wit, biting satire, vivid imagination, with an abundance of trouvailles required by the text. (…) Significant references that are worth a loud shout, tangible bodily theatre that is to the point, full of explosive energy, impeccable acting, songs inserted and a finale inspired by Brecht, in which the „horses” waltz and in the end they stand up in front of us, once more without their Sunday clothes…
Árpád Schilling has proved, that he is worthy to having been considered somebody who leaves a trace in the future European theatrical heritage. He presented us with an outstanding theatrical experience of the kind that we have scarcely seen in Greece.
Yorgos D.K. Sariyannis,Ta Nea
Árpád Schilling presents the humility and the humiliation of bodies tortured by various means outstandingly. It makes us think that we are watching some kind of a Medieval Mad Max, a “heroic phantasy” in which the hero is all alone to fight everyone, the many different embodiments of the Evil. A brutal and naive fresco it is, somewhere halfway between the cabaret and the epos. The pictures remain: people locked up in cages like animals; fruits that open up like human heads. In Árpád Schilling’s work there are punches and splashes, but no blood. The director is not an idiot, so there is no haemoglobin. We are in the theatre; everything speaks the language of symbols. The director holds a mirror up to our startled eyes, tricky, funny, proleptic symbols- we are terrified. We must appreciate the director’s boldness and self-discipline whatever our opinion might be about the grammar of extremity. Árpád Schilling works with experienced actors who know how to use axes and knives without hurting themselves or their partners. (…) If we know the storyline, we will remove our headphones after a while; Hungarian is so beautiful and sounds so wild.
Frédéric Ferney, Le Figaro
Schilling created original stage metaphors and the thick pictures that he uses augment the flow of the story, thicken the plot. Two logs have a branch between them on the top as a barrier between two provinces; the stage is covered with soil, in the killing blood pours down from above; some people vomit, shouts are heard. The sight attracts and repels at the same time, it repels but incants as well. (…) Schilling’s direction is full of strong scenes, strong emotions, and strong references. (…) The performance depicts the age of late feudalism with contradictory, sometimes annoying expressiveness – immorality is so disgusting in our present world. The production is an excellent example that by seeking a new theatrical language, European theatre is capable of reinventing itself. Huge success!
Giuseppe Drago, L'Ora
Schillin’s direction is characterized by speedy rhythm, the mixture of theatrical styles the director’s openness and flexibility. The expressive pictures and the other effects are really memorable, ruthless shouts, vomiting, crashed fruits, the mannerism of the court people, the emotionally romantic, intimate home- pastel colours and an innocent, blond wife (Eszter Kiss), Luther the ironic, and the narrative frame itself as well- we see the story from the animals’ viewpoint. Ági Szirtes’ interpretation of the mild, ironic Mare who is in love, Ernő Fekete’s stallion, who makes up his mind too late- only when he is castrated. The shocking closing picture, the stallion sits on the mare’s lap, ends this clever performance. The whole company is exceptionally good, the protagonist Ferenc Lengyel emerges from between them with his physical and playing powers. A great success.
Piero Violante, La Repubblica
Seldom do we exit a theatre thinking that we have just seen a masterpiece. After the Katona’s Public Enemy we feel just that and we can hardly understand what we have been taking part in. The performance makes us think about what theatre is and it has something new to say about it. The members of the company are all exceptional talents. It is a great success!
Simonetta Trovato, Giornale di Sicilia