Sensum Arts: Black Hen - A Musical Ballad with Songs by Parno Graszt

“…and then suddenly the phone rang…” The wife and her husband had been waiting for this call for a long time. At last they could become adoptive parents, and soon they would be rocking their tiny child in their arms, the light of their eyes, their everything, little Sanyika.

But Sanyika turns out to be a little bigger, and a little different, than the parents expected. He is ten years old. And he is Roma.

Still, they adopt Sanyika and raise their little treasure with dignity and love.

As Sanyi grows up, he is on the verge of earning a mechanical technician’s certificate. Yet just before the exam he makes a life-changing decision: he wants to find his biological parents. To the deep sadness of his adoptive parents, he sets off to search for his roots. He returns to the home where he lived until the age of ten, hoping to learn from Éva néni, his former caregiver, who his real parents are.

His confrontation with his origins and his biological family unfolds in moments that are sometimes humorous and sometimes deeply moving, revealing the challenges of Roma identity and the attitudes of majority society toward minorities.

The title of the play, Black Hen, is no coincidence: songs of Parno Graszt, the world-renowned band founded in 1987, are performed throughout the production in arrangements for four instruments (violin, guitar, accordion, and cajón).

Cast:

Zsolt Szaszák

Brigitta Zámbó

Gyula József Sárközi

Noel Budai

Virág Zazie Farkas

Anna Pinni Borovics

Zsombor Náray Kovács

Márk Harsányi

Written by

Boglárka Ferenczy Nagy and Benedek Csáki

Directed by

Benedek Csáki