As soon as the lights go out and starts No se vale llorar (Nem ér sírni!), the dramatic space pour out vigorously onto the physical one, a small venue in the centre of Budapest, small in size, stripped of any accessory item. An intimate place that, we'll soon discover it, is the ideal place for the text written by Cristian Cortez.

A text full of subtle traps, which have been woven with wisdom by the author and proposes an oppressive atmosphere, as if it were a nightmare in which the characters, even though they dialogue between them, it seems actually that they are talking to themselves all the time. Several monologues which interrupt each other constantly. Desperate monologues, bitter and sharp, full of phrases that exude a dark irony, the kind that makes us think before smile. The characters, lost in the inconsistency of their own lives, talk to each other, although the intent is not to communicate, because the more they speak the more isolated are from each other. What they say could also be what they are thinking. They think, perhaps, in loud voice and share with fierceness what they think, like anyone else would hardly do in normal circumstances. Sometimes, some of them, seems to talk with invisible speakers. They address to their ghosts who, of course, not bother to reply them. The text, a tasty Ecuadorian Spanish in the original, is heard on stage in a polished and faithful Hungarian, highly effective for the actors.

We know that we are watching the first of two versions of the play. The company has entrusted two directors from very different worlds, to put on stage the same text to be shown during a single evening. One after the other, with a short intermission. This is one of the greatest skills of the proposal. One way of bringing the audience into a thorny issue with which professionals are constantly dealing with: from the text to the show there is a long journey, a theatrical text is the starting point, the inspiration of what we see on stage, and the team's work can present it in many different ways. This is why, without doubt, is fascinating to stage any text from dramatic literature. The audience now has the chance, that certainly does not happen very often, to compare two different ways or views. To compare them and perhaps to compare them with their own. The unavoidable temporal order which is subjected to this experience causes, however, a reflection. If we compare two paintings that share the same physical space, which are next to each other, the comparison seems to us more equal. We can go from one to another and have them both at the same time. Instead, in theater we can only see them one after another, retain both in our memory and perhaps compare them after leaving the venue, knowing that the last version we've seen will exert a kind of tyranny in our impressions. As there are two very different directors, viewers are obviously also very different from each other. And each of them will feel inevitably more identified with one of the two versions. But besides these considerations, the proposal is fascinating and refreshing.

The four actors, a rigorous and disciplined team, show their work without dissonance, perfectly adapted between them. With sobriety and solvency they face the challenge of playing different roles in the two versions. And this is another big hit of the show. In a quite Brechtian way, the actor or actress is playing a role and at the end, they play another one in the same play, exchanging roles with each other. This certainly gives the performers a deeper understanding of the play, which flows more accurately on stage and makes us think that we, as viewers, maybe should merge the two versions and so the proposal goes beyond the two viewing of a text. Each of the two productions is the echo of the other and of itself. And this, who knows, is the almost impossible ambition of any stage director: to give a multifaceted approach to the text which has in his hands. Just like Bach did when he immersed in his almost infinite variations.

Korcsmáros András version, the first we see, is austere and clean. He has done an excellent job with the actors, guiding them through the text with no disgress. The characters, in his hands, are what they say. Their gestures become phrases that have not been written by the author, but that complete the original intent and make the word, fit with the behavior and the action. The density of the atmosphere he created is given by a strategy that supports the playwright work and always helps the viewer to think about what is happening.

The second version, by Müller Ádám, is a rewarding surprise. When we are on our seats again, after the break, and still resonates in us the atmosphere created by the previous director, a loud music tells us that a different rhythm, more agile and lively, will lead this new version. Using multiple sound resources, such as a microphone that amplifies the phrases of the characters, and spectacular lighting, like a clever use of projections and shadows. The text is deconstructed to make way for new sensations that invade the viewer, now more ready and open to discover new possibilities in the play. Thus, at the end, we are more excited. The skills of this staging, some more than others, allow us to take risks, to look for more radical solutions to the situations that arise from the play.

Both versions may have something in common, as both underlined the pessimistic sense, each, of course, with its own strategy. So actually, far from being contradictory, they are complementary. None of them saw or heard the other's work during the creation process and for this reason pay our attention the similarities in their views more than the differences which probably are not that drastic. We welcome the initiative of this company whith the will of bringing Latin American theater to the Hungarian scene and discover how Hungarian directors deal with it. How one culture faces to the other and see that the result is always interesting.

About the Author

The playwright and screenwriter Cristian Cortez (Guayaquil, Ecuador) is the creator of several plays that have been staged in many countries like Souflé de rosas, Maduritas, macrobióticas y multiorgásmicas, y Deportada del paraíso. Bachelor of Journalism and Master in Higher Education. Professor of Mass Communication course at the School of Communication at the University of Guayaquil Espíritu Santo UEES. He has taught seminars in screen writing and dramaturgy at various institutions. He is a professor in the Faculty of Philosophy and Arts & Humanities, at Catholic University of Guayaquil. National Prize for Literature, Drama and Contemporary creation, in two occasions, 2000 and 2010 and TV Writer since 1994. As an author he has been included in several anthologies of contemporary Ecuadorian theatre and his works have been premiered by ensembles of Ecuador, Argentina, Colombia, Panama, Peru, Mexico, Dominican Republic and in off Broadway in New York. In April 2004, he received the Dr. Vicente Rocafuerte prize, the highest award that the National Congress of Ecuador gives in art and humanities. In June 2006, the University Laica Vicente Rocafuerte granted him recognition: "Example of journalism today," given to the most outstanding professionals. As a screenwriter, he wrote the short film Última función, Orbeluna productions, Guayaquil and the film La huerta perdida, Brugas Productions, Lima.