What are the signature characteristics of work by Béla Pintér? Wide-reaching appeal, rich Hungarian values, tastelessness, authentic folklore, rampant kitsch, rituals and boisterous exhilaration—in the hands of Béla Pintér and Company these plays all represent a distorted universal mythology. For nearly two decades Béla Pintér (age 46) has been the premiere Hungarian theatre-maker presenting work...

Our Secrets takes us back to 1980s Budapest, during the days of Communist rule in Hungary. The characters are members of the Hungarian folk-music scene that emerged in the 1970s, doing ethnographic work in rural Hungary to revive traditional music and dance forms, which the government then reproduced and represented in state-run cultural houses. Communist Hungary’s dictatorship...

When I first saw Our Secrets in 2015 in Budapest, it was a very dif­ferent time. I was overcome by the powerful sense of ensemble and the exhilarating feeling of seeing theatre artists in a country quite different from ours working at the top of their game. This, I remember thinking, is what ArtsEmerson’s commitment to putting the world on stage is all about. The show included mastery of the form and...

1980. Soviet-era Hungary. In a dance hall, a musician confesses his private sexual desire for his seven-year-old step-daughter. And his government is taping his every word. Under threat of being exposed as a pedophile, he is pressured into becoming a government informant which leads to the arrest and murder of his best friend, the head of an underground, anti-Communism newspaper. The plot of Our Secrets...