Lev Birinski
The Dance of Fools
Adapted by Bélai Marcel and Kiliti Krisztián
In the provincial governorate of Ivan Habarovich everything is in order. The Russian Revolution appears merely as a distant shadow, easily ignored by the citizens amid their everyday self-importance, their routine bureaucratic duties, and their private affairs treated as open secrets. After all, their world – just as ours – extends only as far as the eye can see. And in this governorate there is, quite visibly, nothing seriously wrong. In fact, the source of all trouble will be precisely that there is no trouble at all.
The lives of Ivan Habarovich and the townspeople are turned upside down when word spreads in the capital that, contrary to the official reports fabricated by the governor and his secretary, there is no revolution in their governorate at all. As they scramble to salvage what can still be saved, it becomes clear that, on a “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” basis, everyone has contributed to the machinery of social deception – even those revolutionary youths who, in the very interest of the revolution, refrain from actually starting one.
Lev Birinski’s comic-satirical work, first published in 1912 – only seven years after the Russian Revolution of 1905 – speaks not only of the futility of those living under the spell of lofty ideals, but also offers a diagnosis of humankind’s perpetual exploitation of one another. The adaptation by Marcel Bélai and Krisztián Kiliti, while preserving the spirit of the original drama, sharpens the text’s ironic and witty turns and refreshes Birinski’s incisive, still relevant story, rich in bittersweet humour.
