In the 1820s, the criminal case in which a young man, Johann Christian Woyzeck, brutally murdered his girlfriend out of jealousy stirred up a lot of dust in Leipzig. The press coverage of the case and the published police documentation inspired Georg Büchner's third and last play, Woyzeck, which, however, remained unfinished and fragmented for posterity due to the author's death at the age of 23.
The performance continues to reflect on one of the big questions of the records of the case and of Büchner's drama: was the murderer in a fit state at the time of committing the act?
How far should one stretch one's endurance? How long can he withstand the pressure of his superiors, his environment, love (and jealousy), and the wavering of his faith?
Who is responsible for the tragedy of a person who crumbles under pressure? Could it be that he himself is the tragic protagonist?
In addition to the Germanic rawness, the extraordinary poetry of the text, directed by István Albu, is counterpointed, or rather amplified by German industrial metal music, rearranged and performed by the György Harag Company's acting orchestra.
István Albu is a stage director, born in 1984 in Sfântu Gheorghe, graduated in 2007 as actor from the Faculty of Theatre and Television of the Babeș–Bolyai University in Cluj. In the last two years of his studies he worked as a teaching assistant and as an employee actor at the Hungarian State Theatre in Cluj. Soon his artistic activity turned to stage directing, and he was a regular guest director at the theatre of Cluj until 2013.
In the last ten years he has directed at most of the Hungarian theatres in Romania: in Satu Mare, Odorheiu Secuiesc, Târgu Mures, Gheorgheni, Târgu Mures (Tompa Miklós Company), Hungarian Opera Cluj, Miercurea Ciuc and Sfântu Gheorghe. He has been the director of the Figura Studio Theatre in Gheorgheni since 2017.
Some of his most important works are: The Party by Sławomir Mrożek (2007), The Karamazovs by Dostoyevsky (2008), Demons by Dostoyevsky (2009), Phaedra by Racine (2017), Othello by Giuseppe Verdi (2018), Three Sisters by A. P. Chekhov (2019), Woyzeck by Georg Büchner (2022), The Precarious Fiancé by Tamási Áron (2022).
