Set during World War II in a quiet Hungarian village, the play is a tragicomedy that explores how ordinary people cope with power, fear, and survival. The story follows the Tóth family, whose son is serving at the front. To protect him, the family agrees to host his commanding officer, a Major, at their home while he is on leave. What begins as a gesture of hospitality slowly turns into a psychological ordeal. The Major is mentally unstable, obsessively controlling, and deeply insecure. Yet the family endures his increasingly bizarre and humiliating demands, believing that keeping him happy might safeguard their son’s life. As the nights grow longer, sleep disappears, tempers strain, and dignity erodes. The family’s patience is pushed to its limits, exposing how fear can make people surrender their comfort, freedom, and even self-respect. Beneath its absurd humor and exaggerated situations, the play delivers a powerful commentary on authority, obedience, and the quiet suffering of civilians during wartime. Blending satire with tension, The Tóth Family reveals how tyranny does not always arrive with violence — sometimes it enters politely, is offered a bed, and is served dinner.
Director:
An alumnus and presently the Dean Academics at NSD, Santanu Bose has created over 50 theatre pieces in India, England, Australia, Germany, France, Belgium etc. He has also worked in close association with German, Swiss, Japanese, Welsh, Burmese, American, Spanish, South African and British theatre artists. He has been trained under legendary actor Tripti Mitra he has studied comparative literature, and teaches world drama at NSD. He has curated many festivals and written extensively on theatre. in distant parts of the country including Nagaland, Manipur, and Jammu and Kashmir. He has designed for many films and created many studio-based video art work.
Director’s Note
The Tóths is a comedy that laughs with clenched teeth. Written in the shadow of war and authoritarian obedience, Örkény’s play exposes how ideology enters the home not as a thunderclap, but as a polite guest—one who rearranges the furniture, the bodies, and finally the conscience. In our production, the play is staged as Tanztheater, where movement replaces psychology and the body becomes the first site of submission. This is not realism; it is grotesque precision. The characters move as if programmed—repeating gestures, ritualised smiles, mechanical hospitality. The Major is not merely a man but an algorithm of power optimising obedience of the family at the cost of humanity. Dance allows us to show what language hides. This dissonance creates the play’s macabre humour: a spoof that is funny because it is terrifying, terrifying because it is familiar. The spectacle leans into the theatre of the absurd, but its absurdity is mathematical rather than chaotic. Ideology here is not shouted; it is choreographed. The grotesque is not an aesthetic choice but a moral one: by exaggerating obedience, we expose its cruelty. By turning hospitality into dance, we reveal how easily love can be weaponised. The Tóths asks a brutal question: How far will ordinary people go to be good? The answer is written not in dialogue, but in bodies pushed beyond endurance—until the final movement breaks the algorithm and exposes the human cost beneath the spectacle.
Group:
The Liszt Institute in Delhi is the Hungarian Cultural Centre — part of a global network of Liszt Institutes that promote Hungarian culture, arts, education, and cultural exchange abroad. It was founded in 1978 and is among Hungary’s oldest cultural institutes in Asia. Its main aim is to strengthen cultural, scientific, educational, and artistic ties between Hungary and India through a diverse program of events, workshops, exhibitions, performances, film screenings, lectures and collaborations with local partners.