Péter Kárpáti & friends: Scabby Dog

A visionary folklore of sin. Péter Kárpáti’s latest play explores the deep psychological dimensions of violence 

Confessing is a communal experience. It’s not just a way for the guilty to unburden their soul — it’s also a way to drag listeners into the swamp of sin. 

“Our starting point was the dark and murky world of folktales from Karcsa (collected by Géza Nagy). An ethnographic Galápagos: in this isolated region of Bodrogköz, traditional stories evolved in strange and unfamiliar directions over the centuries.

The world of these tales is visionary and psychologically profound, and every twist and turn has enormous dramatic weight.

I kept only a sentence or two from the originals. Our time and place is today’s worn-down, rural Hungary. We recite fragmented, self-contradictory confessions — stories so horrific that they couldn’t possibly have happened as told here. And yet something surely did happen.

Maybe something even more terrible and mundane.”
(Péter Kárpáti)

“A friend of mine said I had a choice — to either go crazy or start running. You have to do something to love yourself again. You run in the rain, the mud splashes, your body aches, you get a bunch of blisters, your nose runs, branches slap into your face, you finally feel alive, your back hurts, your knees sting, it’s brutal! Your glutes are splitting, it hurts in places you didn’t even know existed. No, I don’t believe it! Your body is breaking, one last big rage, and then purification. There is no forgiveness in life, but here, there is!” (Scabby Dog, excerpt)

Performers: Natasa Stork, Gáspár Téri, Lilla Barna, Tibor Boda, Anna Hámor, Ábel Horváth
Music: Ábel Horváth
Dramaturg: Anna Hámor
Costume: Veronika Keresztesová
Lights, sound: Ákos Papa Lengyel
Production manager: Brigitta Varga (Magnum Production)

Written and directed by: Péter Kárpáti

Special thanks to Réka Somorjai, Júlia Annamária Simon, Rebeka Módosi and Sándor Zsótér.
Coproduced by: Trafó House of Contemporary Arts
Supported by: STAGES (Sustainable Theatre Alliance for a Green Environmental Shift), Creative Europe – European Union, Pro Cultura Urbis
Our performances were made possible with financial support from the Pro Cultura Urbis Public Foundation and the Independent Performing Arts Fund.

90 min
In Hungarian