When I was three and a half years old, I spent evenings with my parents listening to the Rajk trial on the magic-eyed Orion world radio, with its blinking green eyes; that was when I learned the deep, eerie word "traitor". When I was ten years old, I and my classmates received a personal invitation to the reburial of Rajk and his classmates, because the father of one of our classmates was being reburied at the same time; the school principal forbade us to go. In January '57, at the second floor during the big break, we shouted "Russians go home"; the principal ran up and begged us not to do it, the Russians in the nearby West would hear us and shoot us. Six months later, we were all pioneers, and Russian was again compulsory instead of optional English. In the middle of June '58, I was deeply shocked when the radio announced the execution of Imre Nagy and his companions two days late; I felt strongly, as did the vast majority of Hungarian society, that it should no longer have been necessary.

At the end of 2019, I unexpectedly realised that János Kádár, who had played an important and sometimes decisive role in Hungarian history in the second half of the 20th century, was definitely the man for the stage. I decided to characterise the characters primarily with their original texts. I could not have managed without the decades of research and analysis by historians and archivists; however, the selection, grouping and interpretation of the material is my responsibility. I am excited to see the impact of the characters on stage.

György Spiró

"Thank you for the valuable items we received from you for the set of the production. Although we were not able to use all of them due to their size or material, they will be added to the Katona's prop library, as one of our kind donors suggested they could be useful for future productions."

Gábor Zsámbéki

The theme of the presentation is linked to our partner, Hosszúlépés. The sightseeing walk will take you along the streets of the Rose Hill, the places associated with the historical characters in the performance. In the 1950s, this area was known as the "Káderdűlő", where the post-1956 state and party leadership settled in confiscated villas.