Hungary – Elsinor at PlayOn! – International Theatre Festival for Youth
PlayOn! – International Theatre Festival for Youth takes place in Budapest from May 16 to 20. Organized by the Kolibri Theater in Budapest, the event is also part of the 10th International Theatre Olympics, underway in Budapest and across Hungary from April 1st to July 1st, 2023.
The festival presents the shows born within the PLAYON! – New Storytelling with Immersive Technologies European project, innovative productions in which the creators replaced classical storytelling with interactive forms, using digital technologies that are widely known to young people, who can thus become participating spectators.
Elsinor, theatre production centre which in Emilia-Romagna is based at the Teatro Testori in Forlì – the only Italian partner of the project –, takes part with Frankenstein, a performance written and directed by Ivonne Capece, inspired by Mary Shelley’s cult story but an original reversal of the way we look at her work and her disturbing creation.
Just as the scientist was afraid of his creation and not proud of his work, so the writer is not entirely comfortable with the masterpiece she created, and throughout her life she denies and downplays the literary scope of her work and her interest in it. Why?
This production tells of a time when being a woman and an artist could be a serious problem, when one could feel "monstrous" if one gave birth to books instead of children or cohabited with a man instead of marrying him. It tells of a time when a Creatrix fears the genius of her Creature and is forced to justify the magnitude of her ambitions.
Between wireless headsets, virtual settings, real actors and holographic avatars with interactive dramaturgical elements, the show is a dreamlike and immersive journey into the novel and, at the same time, into the emotionality of its author, who confuses herself with Dr. Frankenstein, the Creature with the Work and the characters with memories.
Frankenstein is on stage at the Eötvös 10 Culture House on May 18 (6 pm).
PlayOn! – International Theatre Festival for Youth