It is nothing special than a person’s history from the 50s, about a political captive, who has been caught and taken to Vác, into the prison from one day to the other. He got not only a few years of custodial sentence (in prison, but this statement is even more precise). His lover stays at home, she is pregnant with their child – who knows if they can see each other once more, or even if they can, what will happen then. Seven years – the man got it – are many. Then one day the escape has happened. It is a really simple story, it is “just” a man’s life – however, Ákos Orosz tells and performs it with such a confirmed determination, that it becomes important, and it becomes not only exciting but our part too.

Attila Gérecz – this is the main character’s name in the story, and the author of the texts, which forms the spine of the performance – loves life, his lover, he has already admired his ready to birth child. Partly that is why, he is unable to spend the years in a solitary confinement, with the companion of a wooden board and bucket. This place does not only push him away, simply there is not any positions of the world, according to which his place would be here. The contrast between the in and out can be felt well in the text, Attila, who has lost his freedom, desires it well, that way, he starts writing a poem about everything, about anything, which comes, as it comes out of him. Then the story gets more complicated finely (dramaturg: Borbála Kristóf).

Our hero, during the biggest storm, escapes from the prison, jumps into the river Danube, as we can feel it, he swims a lot between huge waves, he almost freezes to death, he almost drowns, many policemen are chasing him, then one of them helps him. And a woman too, then a family – somehow he always gets a place during his hiding, up until he gets to Pest, to his lover and her best friend. But their love has already got cold: Margit – that is the girl’s name – is together with someone else, maybe it is the twist of fate, that he can provide the safest hiding place for Attila. At the places of his relationships the police always waits for him, all corner is a trap – his mother moves of the town, not to get her son trapped at her place. In practice, a whole town is chasing the man, who spends his time in a café in the evenings with Margit and her friend. Then he gets the hiding place, the one, which is thought to be the safest one, his ex-lover’s new boyfriend’s flat. But all conspiracy turns to be useless, the trust is impossible – the man soon arrives home together with the police. The end is: again the prison. Finally, he gets caught again, and he rightfully expects a revenge beyond the law. But none of the officers, captors, interrogators hits Attila, none of them hurts him, somehow secretly they respect him, because he has done, which the others do not dare to, he resists, he does not accept, which they have wanted him to swallow. Even if, his fate is depressing, he can fight anyway, he always gets into deeper, anytime the wind of freedom breezes in front of him, he always loses something else.

Ákos Orosz just talks and talks, as Attila Gérecz does, he fights with a bucket of water and a frame of door, as our hero does with the elements. I cannot tell, why the bucket of water is the only set –however is can be matched perfectly for some parts of the text – but the actor can use it so determinedly, in a multi-faceted way and obviously, that it does not seem to be a relevant question (director: László Csuja). Orosz in the very small place – he speaks while standing in a single opened double door, from where he moves out only for some moments (for example when two policemen are chasing him, who get alive mystically on the back wall, from the actor’s shadow). He exists with such a purposefulness, he makes so finely difference between the physical struggle of escaping and feelings and desires of the poem writing, that we cannot do anything else than to pay attention on him.

He always talks to us, sometimes he performs a little bit, sometimes absorbs in the bucket, but some obvious freedom always comes from him. From which comes straight that he cannot act differently. He can do only what he does. Even if he has to pay with his life.

Then the actor, and the man – there is not any artistic respect, filled with prophet-like feelings: Orosz simply wants to tell, give us this story, with his natural tools: with his body and soul. While he is closing the door, he tells, that Gérecz was finally set free on 30th October 1956, he took part in the revolution and war of independence, and he was killed by a soviet tank on 7th November. Finally, the actor says: he goes every day in front of his memorial board on Klauzál Square.

It is creepy. As the memorial board gets alive at once. We can see it black and white: in this country there were people, who could not handle oppression, to be tight, they stood up, when they had to, who did not care about anything else, until they did not feel that they were free. Why would anybody accept it, if something pushes him from inside, he was not born to live up to anybody’s expectations, but to live his own life. Compared to it, everything is compromise, and it is reflected clearly by Ákos Orosz’s artistic figure. Gérecz is a national hero, and with the help of Ákos Orosz we can understand, why we can be really proud of him.

Attila Nyulassy, 7óra7, 2013

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)