Mineflowers

In Szeklerland the suicide rate is twice as high as in Romania as a whole. No one knows why. Some explain it with the harsh climate and the severity of the mountainous region. Others say that for the rural Szeklers, who often reach for their knives, the value of human life is different. In their world, the sun sets earlier. The earlier, the better.

This is the environment in which Mineflowers takes place, and it is here that the former miner Iván Vajda lives. Since the mine has closed, he spends his days as a hopeless unemployed man while caring for his sick father. This world has not become what he had hoped for. Like him, those around him are also searching for a way out: his half-sister Ilonka, his friend Mihály, his neighbours Illés and Irma. Each in their own way.

Despite the unfortunate fates, Mineflowers is not a gloomy play. The strong presence of dark humour helps us to observe, from a proper distance, the world we live in. It helps us wake up from the bitter dream in which the characters are slowly destroyed.