Ernő Szép

Firefighter

comedy

In Ernő Szép’s literary work the stage is not less important than prose and poetry. There was a period when he was ranked among the most fashionable playwrights. His one-act plays with their strange topics and unforeseen turning points were noted as funny ideas. Nowadays many people consider these plays the beginnings of Hungarian absurd literature. The intensifying absurdities of bourgeois life turn here into grotesque games. It is possible that not even Ernő Szép was aware of the fact that his attitude towards the escalating inhumanity of his era is at its most critical in these scenes.

The one-act comedy entitled Firefighter is also based on a comic but absurd situation, the short love story of the small town firefighter and the widow drafts a situation, which is nonsensical and ridiculous in the same time: the title character has to make a choice between soothing the suddenly flaming fire of a woman’s passion or hurrying to put out a real fire…

Cast of characters:

Premier: 0000.00.00