Csaba Molnár – Veronika Szabó: CANDLE-LIT DINNER (2019)

Photo by Gergely Ofner

Premiere: autumn 2019 @SÍN Arts Centre

We kindly and odiously invite you to our first or last candle-lit dinner. Such a grandiose occasion is a rarity indeed, so this won’t be one either. But let’s just give it some style! You are asked to dress formally, elegantly, as you would come to a wedding or a funeral. The menu is taken care of by the dwarfs, Mummy and Daddy will make sure about the high family spirits, Pope’s Nose will bring you the sacred altar-bread. Donna Cobra and Donna Molotov will hopefully find the love of their lives. And after all this if you would still feel like dancing then let it be.

Candel-lit Dinner is a theatre performance that is the closest to the world of cabaret and immersive theatre events. The viewers sit around a table and have dinner thus becoming participants of a surreal, absurd gathering. The event is hosted by two figures who serve the guests while transforming into one grotesque character into another. These characters were all created through the research of the creators into the world of bouffon, in which the peculiar language of the performance was developed evoking the humour and mood of black comedy, sketch films and cabaret.

The bouffons are creatures with a distorted body, their movement is determined by their bodily limitations, which all results in a grotesque, surreal, contorted figure. Their appearance questions social norms, and with this they make a parody of accepted social behaviour, especially one of the higher classes. And an elegant dinner party is a perfect scenario for such mimicry. In the sketches we address family dynamics, subordination, sexuality and blasphemy. The characters are rotten both physically and spiritually, they are anti-hierarchical and believe in nothing. They are walking on the thin line between heaven and hell, and invite the viewers into this world.

Creator-performers: Csaba Molnár, Veronika Szabó
Lights: Kata Dézsi
Producer: SÍN Arts Centre
The research of phase of the performance was completed within the framework of the Zero Step Programme of SÍN Arts Centre, supported by the National Cultural Fund.

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Background info:
Our dinner party is a result of the research carried out within the Zero Step programme of SÍN Arts Centre. We have been examining the world of bouffon and black comedy since 2019. Veronika’s first encounter with the bouffon happened in London, she created her solo piece that applied this genre and has been trying to smuggle it into her other works as well every since. The development of bouffon goes back to the Middle Age, when urban communities often casted those away who were ugly, deformed, disabled, sexually or mentally aberrant. There was one day in the year, which was the Carnival day when those living in the periphery of society were invited to entertain the public with their misery. The creators researched this theatre genre within the programme, which has some tradition already in the Western European countries. They experimented with their own, new routes.
Bouffon is a creature with a distorted body, their movement is determined by their bodily limitations, which all results in a grotesque, surreal, contorted figure. Their appearance questions social norms, and with this they make a parody of accepted social behaviour, especially one of the higher classes. They are rotten both physically and spiritually, they are anti-hierarchical and believe in nothing. Anarchists, fascists and sluts at the same time. They are walking on the thin line between heaven and hell. The artists looked for such qualities in themselves, they were interested how this thin line can be maintained in the bouffon character: it is ugly and beautiful, bad and good, revolting and attractive, fearful and funny.