The piece examines recent tensions between the Roma residents of the Hungarian village of Gyöngyöspata and radical nationalists.
?From inside and outside the country everyone is exploiting Gyöngyöspata,? the Scallabouche Company says in a description of the piece on its website.
?Social commentators travel from Switzerland, an advertising executive turns it into a marketing dream and a young man finds himself translating a language he doesn?t understand, for a woman he doesn?t like in a village he doesn?t know. So what is the real story behind Gyöngyöspata? Using verbatim statements, photographs and videos, Scallabouche create an outsiders perspective, set in a dark and magical landscape it depicts a Hungary that is both familiar and strange, absurd and surreal, exploring the personal and the political.?
Set designer Eszter Kálmán said the performance aims to explore the situation in Hungary today through the eyes of foreigners. The characters in the play were based on ones in The Wizard of Oz, she added.
The Scallabouche Company has presented several improvisational productions in English, but Once Upon a Time in Gyöngyöspata is almost entirely in Hungarian.
