In response to the Hungarian government’s manipulative, biased, and exorbitant consultation exercise, we launched the Real National Consultation with three volunteers (Eszter Mátyás, Ildikó Ságodi, Bori Takács) and Árpád Magosányi administrator-activist. Across 7 weeks, we asked people’s opinions concerning 7 questions – and not only asked but helped them form opinions and make decisions with informational material. The initiative brought about no great break-through in Hungarian political life, but in narrow circles involving a few thousand people it initiated substantive dialogue about important issues. It was a moral question for us to set an example in a political discourse whose standard sinks ever lower for the cultured and meaningful discussion of problems.

We created the show titled Autonomy with actors of the Valstybinis Jaunimo Teatras, which is led by Audronis Liuga, as well as a few Lithuanian actors invited for the production. The play’s co-writer and my artistic partner was Ildikó Gáspár. The story tells the life of a Lithuanian family, in which the family-supporting, entrepreneurial grandfather (in the award-winning-performance by Valentinas Masalkis) emotionally nurses the memory of his heroic father – who in reality was an able survivor who collaborated with both the Nazis and the communists. In the show we brought to the fore the terrible memory of the Second World War, when Lithuanians participated in the slaughter of a great number of Jews, while being themselves forced to live in the dual chokehold of Germans and Russians. The piece initiated an important dialogue among spectators about crimes of the past, the shouldering of responsibility, and how much better it were to transcend the world of secrets and lies, because all of this cripples the youth.

Working in 2016 with actors of the Montenegrin Zetski Dom theatre was phenomenal; I returned to create a second show in Cetinje with pleasure. We also built on actors’ improvisations in the piece, titled Kučka (Bitch), but our aim was to develop further from an aesthetic perspective the achievements of the previous project. We brought more poetry to the situations, and used more music too, thanks to Nina Perovic’s wonderful work. I worked on the script, whose main subject was the social role of men and women, with my co-writer Éva Zabezsinszkij. A lonely woman idles at a deserted train station. Men arrive and strike up a conversation with the woman. What one projects on the other. What backstory one has. What are the lived lies and hidden truths; why one is the way they are. The show was an outcry for overcoming learned patterns of behaviour.

At the invitation of the Stuttgart National Opera I directed once again an opera: Lohengrin. It was a joy to familiarise myself with Wagner’s fantastic world. The story of Lohengrin, the stranger from afar asking for unconditional trust, occasioned numerous political and social reflections. What might one who asks for trust be hiding? How can we expect unconditional trust if we are unwilling to behave honestly? How can a grown woman be expected to behave like a young girl? What chance do women have in an immensely masculine community? I’m very grateful to Viktor Schoner, the opera’s intendant, for inviting me and supporting me maximally throughout the process. I thank him too for introducing me to the show’s production designer, Raimund Orfeo Voigt, a remarkably intelligent, out and out theatre person, with whom thinking together was a singular experience. The piece’s entirely black space, disappearing cave-like deeply into the distance, perfectly suited the minimalism and performance style concentrated on singer-actors which Viktor asked me to foster.

After ten years of political and more than twenty years’ professional struggle I finally decided to leave my home. The chief cause of this decision was my feeling that the lives of Hungarians would be ruled by aggressive, manipulative, and discriminatory politics for a long time yet. I do not want my two children to grow up amidst the same lies and frustrations as I did, in the dictatorial period before the regime change. Europe is large and free; we settled in France. I exclude nothing from my life – not even that I might one day return. But for that something must happen. Either in me or in the country in which I was born.

Several of my productions had been invited for guest performances to Croatia, but as an invited director this was my first time working with Croatian actors. The work with the Zagreb ZKM’s dedicated and humble actors and team was exceptionally inspiring for me. I wrote Pansion Eden together with Juli Jakab and Éva Zabezsinszkij; the performance was greeted with enthusiasm by both audiences and the press. The story takes place during a wedding in which the ‘young’ couple are both past fifty years of age, the bride past even sixty. Four siblings meet around the wedding table, and it emerges gradually that they’ve built up their secure, middle-class lives with countless lies to themselves. The death of their parents too is girdled with lies; no-one dares say out loud how much their mother and father disliked each other. Everything takes place in the course of a single night. The wife of one of the siblings would like them to be rid of all their burdens – but that’s only possible if they face themselves. Though her plan almost succeeds, finally all she achieves is that the family members chase her away as the main culprit; even her son disowns her. The production’s composer was Nina Perović, who we got to know in Montenegro; an extraordinary amount was added by Marta Žegura, who designed the costumes.