The protagonist of the story, pediatrician András Szabó, returns to his native village from Germany following the death of his mother in order to settle the family estate, including the pediatric practice left to him by her. Although he has no intention of staying or interfering in the life of the village, András is inevitably confronted with the officials’ duplicity, disguised as stupidity, their methodology of covering up problems, such as how nothing can be said about the fact that once nobody whosoever in the world reports anything, then there is nothing to investigate. So, there is no problem. There is just a shortage of children. Young people move away, there is no reason to stay, and children living in „Korea”; are being sold abroad. It’s better for them, at least they don’t grow up in the dirt, and nobody misses them anyway – the villagers think.
The theatrical work by film director Mihály Schwechtje won the Best Hungarian Contemporary Drama award in 2020. The play is based on a real-life case, and the author had previously made a short film about the case of the sold children.
Karol Rédli studied theater direction and dramaturgy at Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava under the pedagogical guidance of prof. Vajdička and doc. Štrbák. Before that, he graduated from the State Conservatory in Bratislava (music-drama department), where he currently works as an acting teacher. He is engaged in dramaturgical work within the framework of theater festivals (International Festival Istropolitana Projekt) or his own productions and translations from the Hungarian language (G. SPIRÓ, B. PINTÉR, CS. KISS, M. SCHWECHTJE, A. PASS, I. TASNÁDI).
He is the laureate of the prize for the best artistic translation of the Translation Universiade of the Literary Fund (with novella Dragomány Gyorgy – Rókaláb), as well as the holder of the Reflektor awards for the best direction and production in the 2016/2017, 2017/2018 season (B. Pintér – Children of a demon, F. Dürrenmatt – The visit). He lectured at the prestigious Moscow theater school GITIS and led acting workshops at the Academy of Performing Arts and at SAS, Comenius University in Bratislava.
He actively directs in theaters such as Jókai Theater in Komárno, Arteatro, Municipal Theater Trenčín, Košice Theater Thália, Spišské Theater, Lab Theater, KZP Bratislava, Ticho a spol. Bratislava, but he has also created many successful productions for independent travel agencies (Agentúra8, City Reboot, Harmonia Seraphica, Csavar). He is also engaged in dubbing direction (Sunrise studio).
