In memoriam Sándor Petőfi

On the occasion of the Petőfi commemorative year, a solo performance about Sándor Petőfi is being prepared at the Tamási Áron Theatre in Sf. Gheorghe. The production entitled Upon a Pillowed Couch, performed by the theatre artist Gellért Pignitzky, intends to evoke the life and daily struggles of a man free from cults and ideologies built around the figure of the poet, bringing him closer to the audience of the twenty-first century. The performance is directed by Ármin Ricz, and it will take place on Wednesday, 15th March, from 18:48 in the Chamber Hall.

According to the creators, the performance recalls the most important moments of Petőfi’s life, through which the viewer can get to know an artist who loved, believed, was angry and disappointed, mourned at the highest level, who was able to rejoice, console, and work with the same passion as to live in necessity, to be hungry and cold or fighting for justice. Petőfi’s poems include the imprint of an era in which freedom and Hungarianness meant something different, in which being in your twenties meant something different, being in love, being unemployed, and going to war meant something different than it does now. It is not certain that the thoughts and goals that defined Petőfi’s life are still fully valid today, but as the presentation proves, it is worth paying attention to these questions, it can be instructive for us to get to know and understand the life of this much-quoted man.

According to Gellért Pignitzky’s confession, he wanted to show the side of Petőfi through the performance that is less familiar to the audience. As he told me, he read all of Petőfi’s poems several times and read a lot about the age, colleagues, and colleagues before he decided to prepare the performance. After watching the performance Alceste produced at the University of Arts in Targu Mures, he noticed the director Ármin Ricz, who gladly accepted his invitation to collaborate.

Events and thoughts related to Petőfi flash in a wide field of association in the production, which is based on excerpts from poems and a text quoted from his speech, and actually covers the poet’s entire life.

In preparing the production, Gellért Pignitzky had other collaborators: Kata Győrfi (dramaturge), Endre Melles (choreography), Kristóf Nagy-Kopeczky (co-performer and technical assistant) and Zsóka Veress (stage manager). After the presentation, the performance will be shown again in the Chamber Hall on March 16th and April 11th, starting at 18:48.