Survivers

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The number seven is a fairy tale, and it is also fitting that the Independent Theatre Hungary is organizing the European Union’s first international Roma theatre meeting for the seventh time since 2017. The Roma Heroes – International Roma Theatre Festival awaits the audience between May 7-11, 2025 at the co-organizer Eötvös10 Cultural Center. These five days are a celebration of theatre, where we pay tribute to independent theatre artists, their dramatic heroes and the Roma communities together.

“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” – so the saying goes. Some say it’s a lie embedded in a cliché, but for Roma communities in Europe it is very much a reality.” – says Rodrigo Balogh, Director of the Roma Heroes International Theatre Festival. “Looking at the Roma past, there is no reason to still be here. Yet we live, we create, we tell stories. We see ourselves not only as survivors, but as heroes – just like the independent Roma theatre initiatives that create new works year after year without institutional support. At the same time, we, the people who live here on Earth today, are all survivors in a sense.”

Among the performances, Hungarian, Italian, Romanian and Irish productions will be presented in their original languages, with English and Hungarian subtitles. After each performance, an audience meeting will take place, where viewers can get to know the creators in person. The discussions will be broadcast live by HowlRound Theatre Commons, so they can also be followed online. In addition to the theater programs, visitors can see Norbert Oláh’s “Anachronistic Sci-Fi” exhibition and the Romano Kher exhibition.

The festival aims to raise issues that are usually swept under the rug and to initiate an open dialogue between Roma and non-Roma, artists and wider society. The festival’s opening performance, a joint production by the Romanian feminist Roma theatre, Giuvlipen Company, and the Marin Sorescu Theatre in Craiova, Caliban and the Witch, paints a futuristic picture of a world where the Roma people are conquering. Irish traveller Michael Collins’ (Travel Wagon Wheel Theatre) performance Magpies on a Lamppost draws attention to the fact that suicide is seven times more common among travellers than among the majority society around them, through the story of a father who loses his son. Italian Rampa Prenestina presents the challenges of Roma people born in Italy but living without rights and official documents in her performance Waiting for Bo. Independent Theatre Hungary’s production of Cannibals tells the story of an 18th-century Roma community who were executed on trumped-up charges. RS9 Theatre’s production of Mariella Mehr’s Life tells the story of a silent biological genocide in Switzerland from the perspective of a survivor writer.

The Festival is part of the European Roma Theatre Festivals project, supported by Perform Europe, and supported by Trust For Mutual Understanding and HowlRound Theatre Commons. We would also like to thank the Romanian Cultural Institute in Budapest and the Embassy of Ireland, Hungary for their support.

Program

Performances and programs

• May the 7th. – 19:00 – Opening performance: (Caliban and the Witch) – Giuvlipen Company (Romania)
  A spectacular, futuristic performance that radically reimagines Shakespeare’s The Tempest. The power balance is reversed: the Romani people conquer Western Europe, and Prospero, as a Romani Christian ruler, subjugates white Europeans in the name of “civilization.” Sycorax, the witch displaced from the original play, finally gets a voice, while Caliban, in his role as the oppressed European slave, becomes a symbol of rebellion. A provocative and thought-provoking story about issues of power and injustice.
• May the 8th. – (Magpies on the Pylon) – Traveller Wagon Wheel Company (Ireland)
  This two-person play, set in the Irish Traveller community, tells the heartbreaking story of a father and son. Jim does everything he can to provide for his family, but his greatest struggle comes when his son Tommy gradually withdraws from the world and eventually commits suicide. Suicide is alarmingly common among Irish Travellers – the play explores the pain of social exclusion and loss. A play that will make you cry and laugh at the same time – and one that will keep you thinking about for days to come.
• May the 9th. –Waiting for Bo – Rampa Prenestina Company (Italy)
  A performance in the spirit of Beckett, which depicts the struggle of two young Roma people who are looking for work. Failures, misunderstandings and prejudices push them further and further away from their dreams. A shocking, yet human theatrical experience about vulnerability, hope and survival, served with the self-forgetful humor of commedia dell’arte.
• May the 10th. – Cannibals – Independent Theater Hungary
  In 1782, hundreds of Roma were abducted, brutally tortured, and falsely convicted in Hont County in the case of a missing butcher. 41 people were publicly executed, the survivors were forced into forced labor, and their children were torn from their families. The Cannibals is a harrowing account of injustice, prejudice, and the forgotten victims of history.
• May the 11th. – 19:00 – Closing performance: The Life of Mariella Mehr RS9 Theater
  A theatre performance about the tragic fate of the Swiss Yenisei people, which evokes the memory of a community that became victims of the Swiss biological genocide. The story is brought to life through the works of author Mariella Mehr, presenting a silenced past and the fight for survival. A poignant play about the search for identity and the importance of remembrance.

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