The Danube

Maria Irene Fornes

The Danube set in Budapest, Hungary follows a shifting world and its affect on the characters within it. Through brief moments in Paul’s life we watch as the world around him dissolves into poisonous self-destruction.

Written as a series of short scenes, Maria Irene Fornes evokes a feeling of ineffectuality as the time period spans from 1938 to present day, departing from realism and chronology. The moments dissolve into an absurdity that diminishes to the final scenes. These last scenes are acted and subsequently reenacted with puppets until the final flash of light.

The Goodman’s old studio space seemed appropriate for its intimate size both in relation to the characters onstage and the proximity to the audience. I was attracted to expanding on the use of the ‘puppet theatre’ with the aesthetic approach to the space. I also aimed to emphasize the rapidity of the scenes by using painted flats that drag on rapidly and noisily, interrupting the action onstage.

We start in a café on the banks of the Danube River. The scene feels very controlled and formal, which is reinforced with a tape recording on how to learn Hungarian. I wanted the scene to mirror and support that artifice with a textured postcard drop of the Budapest’s bank. When Paul and Eve fall in love, the drop opens revealing their wedding photo. As the scenes progress the characters fall ill to the poisons surrounding them. Eve collapses in an epileptic fit and soon lesions appear on their skin. As the realism dissipates so does the image. The flats open to reveal the image expanding. The texture of the back wall is slowly incorporated into the painted panels until in the final moment the last flats are pulled aside to reveal the back wall of the theatre leaving the characters completely exposed before the final flash of light.

Furniture and props are piled up with rubble and surround the false proscenium. The actor playing Mr. Kovacs, the waiter and the barber, manipulates everything needed onstage.