Tercett – Zsigmond Móricz’s Women

In András Forgách’s play for the stage, the legendary and tragic story of Hungarian writer Zsigmond Móricz and the women he loved is presented through the intricate web of the game of love.

In Hungarian with English subtitles

“I fall in love with a ragged little man, meek and obedient, sitting by my skirt and promising to lay the proverbial patience of a saint characteristic of his race at my feet”, Janka Holics says of her husband, Zsigmond Móricz. Then Móricz puts these words into the mouth of an actress and has her dressed in his wife’s clothes. This is how he builds a bridge between his bedroom and the stage. It is a dangerous game. The name of the game is love. The meekness is at an end, and the life and death struggle begins. Móricz knows perfectly well that only one woman can remain, but he runs toward his own end like a wounded wild-boar, dragging his family with him. Will the actress Mária Simonyi be the new Janka Holics or not? The experiment begins innocently enough, but the human heart is a sensitive instrument. Having crossed the bridge, the actress finds herself in Móricz’s bedroom, leaving no room for Janka there, who must take her love with her to beyond the grave. Still, it is good to live, she tells us before she slips into her garments of farewell. – Bálint Szilágyi