Krisztina Tóth’s “Spinoza Evening” explores a mother’s memories

In a staged reading, very little stands between the text and the audience’s imagination. A voice, an actor’s presence and the spoken words create the world that other productions might build with scenery and visual effects. This direct form lies at the heart of the 8 November performance of Tóth Krisztina’s Borneói lepkék a víz felett at the Spinoza Színház.

Mari Nagy will perform the text in this one-off production, directed by Gábor Czeizel. The event is part of the Erzsébetvárosi Függetlenek Fesztiválja, a festival of independent theatre in Budapest’s District VII, Fidelio reported.

Cracks in a life story

While the title points the imagination towards faraway places, the work centres on an elderly woman. She recalls her life, her family and her relationship with her daughter, as personal experience becomes intertwined with the history of the 20th century.

Love and pain, old grievances and attempts at self-justification run through her account. As more memories surface, the distance grows between the woman’s image of herself and the person gradually revealed to the audience. Behind the story she tells, another, unspoken narrative slowly begins to take shape.

Tóth Krisztina’s work explores the tangled layers of a mother-daughter relationship, family patterns passed down through generations, and the harsher, at times cruel, side of motherhood. It approaches these themes with subtle irony while retaining a clear sense of the character’s human frailty.

A world created through the actor’s voice

Fidelio’s preview highlights Mari Nagy’s restrained yet powerful stage presence. The staged-reading format can bring the audience unusually close to the material, leaving the text, the performance and the listeners’ imagination to shape the story together.

Borneói lepkék a víz felett will be presented once, on 8 November, at the Spinoza Színház as part of the Erzsébetvárosi Függetlenek Fesztiválja.

Source: Fidelio