Can one live enough? Will anything remain after us? How do our decisions shape the lives of the generations that follow us? What and who must change so that we can live well together? What do we only notice once the other is gone? What truly matters? Is it possible not to die?

Requiem is a multigenerational Hungarian family story centered around women: a larger-than-life grandmother, her daughter and daughter-in-law with whom she has a strained bond, and the granddaughter returning home from abroad. We gain insight into three periods of the family’s and their community’s life, defined by the motifs of birth and death.

The production is a joint experiment by Jakab Tarnóczi and his creative team on how theatre can speak about a nation’s state of mind, its nerves, its micro-communities – and whether it is still possible to believe in some kind of shared future. The play, written for the company of Katona József Theatre, is the final premiere of Gábor Máté’s directorship.

requiem (from Latin: requiem) – a Catholic mass for the repose of the soul of the deceased, as well as the generic term for musical compositions written for it. A rite of remembrance of death and a prayer for peace in the afterlife.

„Requiem aeternam dona eis Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis.”

„Grant them eternal rest, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them.”