Elmira College Theatre Features Hungarian Short Plays

The Elmira College Theatre Program continues its 2019-2020 season with "OPPROBRIUM: An Evening of Hungarian Short Plays." Performances are scheduled November 14, 15, and 16 at 8:00 p.m., with a matinee November 17 at 2:00 p.m. in Watson Arena at Elmira College.

In spring 1989, Hungary began dismantling its fortified border with Austria. A few months later, the first crack in the Iron Curtain opened when hundreds of East Germans fled across the Austrian-Hungarian border.

When the Iron Curtain was torn open for the first time, on June 27, 1989, an image made its way around the world. It showed two men dressed in suits, using bolt cutters to nip holes in a barbed wire fence.

The men, then-Austrian Foreign Minister Alois Mock and his Hungarian counterpart Gyula Horn, had traveled to the Austria-Hungary border that day to send a signal that the division of postwar Europe was coming to an end. Shoulder-to-shoulder, wielding the bulky bolt cutters against the wire fence, they seemed to be conveying the good news that the fence was finally coming down.

These short plays, translated by George de Falussy, Elmira College associate professor of theatre, and Rita de Falussy, reflect the changes, social and political, that occurred prior to the collapse of the Iron Curtain separating Eastern Europe from the West. Hungarian Playwrights, comment on a changing world, guised as comic and dramatic pieces, in order to avoid the censor which would prevent production of their work.

The Elmira College Theatre production of "OPPROBRIUM: An Evening of Hungarian Short Plays" features Julissa Garcia, Kevin Silfee, and Joshua Stuttle. The production is directed by Professor George de Falussy.

All Elmira College Theatre productions are free and open to the public. Seating is first come, first served. Friday and Saturday performances begin at 8:00 p.m., with matinees at 2:00 p.m. on Sunday.