The play premiered at the KunstenFestivalDesArts in Brussels in May and has since been shown at the Alkantara festival in Lisbon and at the Theater de Welt2010 in Essen.
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?Kornél Mundruczó forces audiences into the role of gods: viewers must passively watch the increasingly harsh events developing in front of their eyes ? The combination of live action on stage and gruesome images on screen creates a shocking effect. Mostly because it makes us face the fact that reality out there is ever crueler,? the Belgian online magazine cobra.be said.
Stripping, torture, psychological terror and murder ? these are some of the words a reviewer used to describe the play in nachtkritik.de.
?Mundruczó cruelly forces his audiences to face violence....In spite of the fact that no real blood is shed on the stage, this reality show is hard to watch....Emotional moments of the yearning to escape appear in musical interludes when actors start playing music on every object they find in the lorry, whether it is a rubbish bin, an iron or a sewing machine.?
?The fear, manipulation, dependence, hope, fatefulness, indifference and stupidity have a shocking and sometimes irritating effect, but it is authentic in every moment,? the Dutch Volkskrant said.
Hard To Be a God will continue its tour of international festivals in the Rotterdamse Schouwburg and in the Theatre National de Bordeaux in the autumn. The Hungarian premiere will take place at the Trafó House of Contemporary Art in Budapest in the spring of 2011.
Photo: Máté Nándorfi
