 Hello, my name is Rosa Maria Costes-Tisneros. I am collaborating with the Independent Theatre Hungary and it gives me just great pleasure and honor to sit down with Rodrigo, who is the founder and artistic leader of the Independent Theatre Hungary. He is a writer, director and educator and the initiator of the Roma Heroes Festival and writer and director of numerous of the plays that we've been focusing on. And those plays often have an inter-ethnic and social topic and component to it. I'm also here with Marta Nilesh, who is the Operative Leader of the Independent Theatre Hungary and is a sociologist, dramaturg and educator. And in today's conversation we'll be translating for us, but also just as a point, he was the dramaturg for the play we're going to discuss today, which is Shaddy's. Shaddy's was written and directed by Rodrigo and so we're here to learn a little bit more about the work from your perspective. So Rodrigo, I had a bio, but if you could describe in your own words who you are and where you, both of you are right now. So hello, everybody watching the program screening now. I'm Rodrigo Balog, a Roma theatre artist in Hungary. As you also mentioned, we've been organizing the Roma Heroes Festival since 2017. We have a quite wide overview on the Roma theatres around Europe and also their art work. These art works from my point of view are fantastic. And I'm very motivated to disseminate and share with as many people as possible. Yes, thank you. Thank you for that. And we are in Budapest in a flat which functions also as a meeting point for the colleagues of Independent Theatre Hungary, as similar to other European Roma theatres we don't have a strong building or an office or a rehearsal room. So we are quite flexible in using different flats. Yes, and I think it's a testament though to your work and your heart that you guys put and do so much and you reach a global scale from your apartments and from your flats. So it's lovely, it's really powerful. And with that I want to perhaps if we can start reflecting a bit on the work of Shadi's and the play. If you could give us a very brief overview of the work. I know it has to do with health care and the body and especially in the last year health has been a very serious issue. So if you could tell us a little bit about the work from your perspective as writer and director. So there is a sad story behind the play and the performance of Shadi. So in Hungary around 70,000 people dies because of any mistakes of the doctors or like not receiving good services in the health care system. So without we should react on this pandemic. And also without we should reflect on the discrimination that many of our people faces in the health care system. For example in Hungary it was very often that they made sterilization on aroma of women after they gave birth to a baby. And also till now many times from our people would see very bad service in the health care system. And like not respect for treatments. But only in case if they would see bad service. So this was like the end of the play. And in the next step we also analyzed what kind of plays were made till now related to health care issues in Hungary. Most of these plays weren't very much successful. They didn't fail. So this topic is a very neurotic topic in Hungary. So everyone has some bad experience related to health care system. And people doesn't want to go to the theater and see these problems at the stage. So in the fall of 2018 we wrote a call for application for young people who wanted to participate in the scholarship program. A lot of young people applied for this call. So the content of this program was that for 7 months every week for 15 hours the scholars participated in the workshop. The framework which we created the play together. And the rehearsals and theater education. And then performed it in the RS9 theater. And also kept it for longer for other performances. We did. So we started the work with four youngsters in the beginning of 2019. And they were a mixed group of Roma and non Roma boys and girls. And three out of the four in university. We made different situation games through which we created a draft of story. In order they are able to realize the situation games we also brought in some stimulus for them. For example we informed them about research results about this topic. Our interviews made with service providers in the health care system. And also interviews made with patients with services. It was important to ensure them a wide perspective of this topic in order they can be objective and not to have biases about any of the topics. And we also spoke about what the experiences of these four young people were regarding the health care system. How was the health consciousness in their families. So their personal stories made a play as a full entire work. I am very lucky related to all the four young people. There was a very unique situation. For example for the scholarship program, two sisters applied twins. Who contributed to the play with a lot of personal stories of their lives and their families. And both girls attended university in Deverson and they brought in such intellectual quality in it which contributed a lot to the final play. And the third girl was also very important contributor of the workshop and after this whole process she also applied to a theater school and has been admitted so she really started her theater career during this period. I highlighted these three persons because they were the ones who participated in the whole process from the beginning to the performance. But with only four characters and participants we were so much lucky. We knew from the beginning that among young boys it's very high the cancer in the balls. So we take more or less at the beginning the main illnesses which the characters had in the play. And as the boy should have this ball of cancer it wasn't really attractive for the participants or the youngsters this character and finally till the performance we consumed three of the young guys who always left the project. We needed to bring in a new one. So this role was very difficult and challenging on mental level for these young guys. So the mental challenge was also quite strong for the girls but they were much stronger with it and didn't have so much bad influences on their. But we saw that also with the guy characters we had a good cooperation and when they left the project we had also like good follow up and still haven't come back with them. But maybe because of this in a later work of mine I focused on the sensibility of the man in general which is not so much that. So this this problem brought me a new topic and the vulnerability of man. It was important for me to attack the stereotypes at some level. So for example in your story the nurse or who is the service provider was of of gypsy origin. And it was also very important that all the roles were quiet divers just as an example. So for example when we portrayed a drug user girl who also years in the hospital it was also important to show the background of her and why she became a drug user. And that was also a very important part of my work. When for example there was a drug user who was the service provider who was the service provider of the drug user. And the only guy character used to belong to extremist group the members of which like attacked different meter youngsters. Which is on a superficial level quite bad character but we also highlighted the background of this guy and why he became a member of extremist group. So it was also highlighted later on by the critics the Hungarian critics that it was very surprising for them that the Roma theater. Deals with an extremist guy and try to deal with his problem with understanding. But it was because we wanted to deal with all the stories in an objective way and to to go beyond the surface and research the reasons of all the activities of all the characters. Exactly and I think that that's one of the the powers of the play is the work is that you offer you frame each person not as their actions but as a person and every person has a story. And that backstory really affects the actions and I think that's the beauty of what makes it universal that you are your characters all you want us the viewers to empathize with each character from the extremist to the to the nurse to the drug user. And it's I think it's really powerful and you know it brings me to a question around taboo topics when you were doing the the workshops and working with the community or doing the research did any taboo topics come up for you. And you know you kind of mentioned the one with the male prostate and that that was a bit too much for this one person. But you know whether more topics like that that were because some communities have taboo topics that you know that's home conversations. So I just curious as to your experience with that. For example, the girl twins, I just mentioned, puts the real stories of their parents and how their parents are very much not conscious regarding their past. So related to this lack of has to do with that. So related to this lack of has consciousness. We also highlighted that in many, among many communities in villages, in like bad economic situations, people think that if I, if I will be ill, then I will be taken to the doctor and repaired like a big computer. And I think it's also kind of taboo attacking that we speak also about this issues. So just coming back what I mentioned earlier that most of the theater performances failed in Hungary, that I think in this play, the main topic wasn't only the health care system and this topic on its own, but the activity and energy of the youngsters in the store and also the attacking the taboos, which you mentioned. Yes. And it's, you know, you, you offered some insight into that process. And it's, you know, I think one of the beauties is that you gave the example of the village, the woman who doesn't want to go to the hospital because she fears she might be treated as a vacuum cleaner, like an object. And maybe that's a bit difficult for some, for some people to imagine. That's silly. How could they think that? But that fear comes from somewhere and you can't deny someone that fear. They, you know, you have to listen and hear that and validate. And I think that's what the play does really well is it takes someone's fear, small or big, and it just says okay. And how, how, how can we, you say peel back the onion? How can we get to the core of what's happening there? So it's, it's a lovely, very powerful and transformational way. I think of, of celebrating many voices, which I think the work does, but also the you, you and your company do. And so it's lovely to hear that the personal stories, you know, people, the young people felt that they could offer their personal stories in the process of writing and making the work with you. If you could tell me a little bit about some feedback from audience members, because you started the, we started our conversation. You saying people didn't always want to go to theater to listen or to talk about healthcare and some of these heavy topics. So I'm curious how, you know, the play, how the work has been received because it's been shared globally. So, you know, online, but also body to body. So if you could maybe tell us a little bit about that feedback you've received. Thank you. So after the performances, we usually had audience discussions. So because of this, we are lucky to have a lot of the types. So, besides, during this discussions, besides the fact that the audience have got also some information about the background of the creation of performance. We focused on these discussions that what the audience member would do in order to change somehow the situation of the, as their system. So we all know that the system is bad if you go in, you might die there and won't help you. But just speaking about this, it doesn't have any point. But what you as private person could contribute to, in order to, you know, the major eighties? But we asked these questions after the performance and at the end of the performance, the 4 young people who were in this hospital, out that they are doing a campaign and they are doing blood giving or blood donation and they also made a related campaign which is actually an activity which can be done by every citizen. So we came from the position that we or the characters of the play already did something so we had a reason to ask the audience that what could you do? Yeah but actually this is also a taboo the blood donation for example you as I don't know the roman nurse goes for a blood donation but you don't know who we receive this blood but getting back to the feedbacks of the audience we received feedbacks from very different positions there were for example some service providers were to the healthcare system and they said that this performance gave them a lot and for example one of these women said it's good that the language and the facts were real professionally based and they weren't just figured out and what was very uplifting for me that the people who stayed at this audience discussions spoke up very bravely about their own experiences what they had in the healthcare system as a sender or as but which wasn't so good that usually there weren't real suggestions what we as private persons could do in order to change the situation but for example we got some feedbacks that audience member went to blood donation after they saw the performance but there weren't very innovative ideas for controlling these problems sure and but you know it takes time to I think get people to really act but even the fact that they attended the work and that they were engaging in the conversation already is a huge I think action and you know it's lovely that you the the theater the actors the people in the workshop the community members took that responsibility and said okay this is what I can do I can create this work as you said and now it's your turn and you know it's a shared responsibility and that's really powerful and important to say that it's not just Roma or just non-Roma that need to do something but everyone plays a role in that and that flexibility is important lovely and so my last question goes to the title of the of the work can you tell me a little bit where the title comes from and what it means please but it might have also like there is a hospital in Hungary in Hungarian town and there is a room in this hospital where came the new babies the room number six and they always put the gypsy mothers in room six the mothers who gave birth to already dead child and the ones who doesn't really have who are not really pregnant but think that they are pregnant so this room number six is the room of Shadi's and so there's something very intense there about life and death and you know babies and next generation sometimes you know that that it can be quite hopeful when you know babies can be blessings for families and for communities but it's also can be very difficult you know and sometimes those babies as you say die and don't make it and that that's also part of I think a journey of you know the of life it's a cycle of life and it's you know it makes me very sad to think about you know that pain and suffering not only for the for the mother but for the family but also for the culture because again there that these topics aren't always we might not know how to talk about it and it's a lovely I think metaphor for the work that of the play and it's intense but I think it's a kind of central point for the the work that for the rest of the play because babies bring life but they also have that they can also bring death and make us face that so it's quite powerful yeah yeah so is there anything else that either of you would like to share with me of your experience a memory that perhaps makes you smile when you think about it about the work I'm sure there are many but maybe something that yeah okay so during the process of the creation of the play and the performance everybody who participated in this work were very sensitive and sensible and open to the others and the I might have never experienced such an open and sensitive team including the costume designer and everybody in the person so patients and love really much characterized our birth and the the colleagues were very much into into this cooperative birth which I hardly experienced so for example the trains I mentioned the year Katharine and Irene Godot and they presented the university at the countryside and they came to the to the rehearsers three times a week which meant like 1500 kilometers traveling every week so and this this this line in Hungary is a lot in time because our trains are very slow and I was just informed in the last days a young girl who is applying to see at her academy and we didn't know her choose the monologue from display for her entrance exam which is like a good feedback that the play will be used also by next generations that's fantastic that's really really fantastic and you know they they're two you know both points really highlight that the the human spirits and that you know when we have health problems or we have health issues you know sometimes it might look one way but the spirit of the person fights through and you know the the the two young people traveling thousands of kilometers a week just shows that health you know that the the agency and the willingness and you know now this this work is being used by another generation and a new way in a modern way I think reflects also that the community the Roma and non-Roma were always developing always modernizing and new ways fresh ways so it's it's lovely and it's just a testament to all of the work that you know you've done with the play but also on a more kind of global scale that both of you are doing with with independent theater Hungary so thank you so much thank you I would just add two thoughts that one thing is you asked about the title of shawty's and rojigo answered a very objective answer which came as the word but I think all the four characters are considered as shawty's in the society because many times the society consider Roma or drug users or extremists or children without family shawty's and they are treated like that but in the play they also show that they can think also on other people and they can as mentioned be below their problems or above their problems and this blood donation for me as geometry was also very important symbol because we always speak about these ethnic issues about like different communities and colors but at the end of the day which matters is your blood and maybe you are Roma or non-Roma or Eskimo or American European but your blood group is what is what matters if you have an accident or anything and if you need blood you don't ask whose blood is it because it's red it's I don't know arid negative AB and so on and that's what matters and you don't care if it comes from a Roma or white person or somebody who's leftist or rightist but you just need it when you give also blood donation you also give like support to all human beings and not only the ones who think or leave the way which you think is bad for you yeah thank you for that and you know it's it's just so I don't know hopeful you know it just gives me hope to think that we can talk about these issues very serious especially given the last year we've had with the pandemic but you know that there's something about coming together and just seeing people for for who we are for humans we're a human race and that that's so important and so powerful as well and that that is what's going and has been kind of getting us through these difficult moments so and maybe we're all a little bit of a shoddy somewhere we're all shoddies in some capacity and that's okay and that is okay um so thank you so much both thank you so much thank you thank you thank you how do I say thank you in Hungarian? thank you so much