The show is a production of the "Tamási Áron" Theatre from Sfântu Gheorghe and is presented as part of the National Theatre Festival 2022.

16+

Performance in Hungarian with translation into Romanian

Opera-junk: lively, abrasive music, a fairytale world and grotesque characters, irony and humor aplenty, about the swampy terrain of raising children.

Anything the famous Tiger Lillies put their hands on, something unique and strange comes out, pushing the boundaries. That's what happened when, under the title Shockheaded Peter, they set Heinrich Hoffmann's 19th-century storybook, Struwwelpeter to music. Then Phelim Mcdermott and Julian Crouch turned it into a horror and grotesque musical full of dark humor. Later, Parti Nagy Lajos's wordplay and biting irony gave birth to the Hungarian version: an opera-junk, titled The Picture Book for Good Children.

The end result: lively, abrasive music, a fairytale world and grotesque characters, irony and humor galore about the swampy terrain of parenting. But as muddy and swampy as this terrain might be, we certainly won't sink, because we're in the care of a "teacher of pedagogy". A teacher obsessed with principles, who is nagging us with his own creed, through the example of several children. This is the overriding principle of education, i.e. of healing; because a belt, no matter how hard we try, cannot be used too often, or even enough. Yet what should we do in this cuddly world? How should we educate?

Photography: Zsolt Barabás

Translated by Andreea Codrea-Boeriu