DRIVE

(working title)



Jurányi Art Incubator House (Budapest)
x
HochX Theater und Live Art (Munich)





Since the 1990’s, the presence of German car manufacturers has been increasing in Hungary, and it influenced the relationship between the two countries, between centre and semi-periphery. After production began at the Audi factory in Győr in 1993, complex economic and political dependencies formed, the cooperation between consecutive Hungarian governments and these German-based companies became mutual interest. The importance of this sector continued to increase during the last 15 years of Orbán-governments (from 2010) that supported the German enterprises with tax reliefs and  infrastructural developments. They even changed the legal environment to accommodate the needs of the vehicle industry: the infamous Slave Law/Lex-Audi (officially the Law CXVI. published on 20.12.2018.) curtailed employee rights. In 2012 Mercedes started production in Kecskemét, in 2025 BMW will open their new factory in Debrecen. For the German capital Hungary has a comparative advantage as the salaries of workers can be as little as a third of the German colleagues’, local employees settle for worse working conditions and the tradition and political standing of trade unions is also weaker. Intertwining these powers creates a common interest to maintain this exploited status of the workers.

At the same time the popularity of radical nationalism and racist narratives became stronger in working class circles. As Didier Eribon pointed out in a recent interview in the Hungarian press: “Today, far-right parties across Europe – from France and Germany to Italy, Sweden and Greece – are posing as defenders of the working class. They claim to speak for the people abandoned by centrist and leftist parties. This is a major failure of the left, especially social democratic movements, which have moved away from addressing class issues and aligned themselves with the neoliberal agenda.” (at litera.hu)

The arts turned towards social issues stepping up in areas where the welfare state was failing, but the questions of class and structural criticism are mostly left out. Stories of industrial workers are not present on Hungarian stages, if they appear they are mostly comic figures. Working class people are also missing from the audience. The theatre world is a “bubble” isolated from these groups of society, solidarity and post-artistic approaches rarely spill out to this realm and the distance between the diverse communities in society grows. We are dedicated to inviting these underrepresented voices to a theatre space.

Our documentary theatre performance is an attempt to create a dialogue between these isolated communities to start to think about solidarity, social class diversity and forms of resistance. Two people will be present on stage: a car factory worker and an actor. They share their personal experiences about activism, altruism and social mobility, with a special focus on the importance of trade unions. How are they represented in political discourses? How can solidarity exist in a society where individualism and self-interested behavior are the norm? How does the seemingly unchangeable status quo of power limit political imagination?

DRIVE (working title) is an international collaboration and research based artistic process culminating in performances shown in various cities, and aims at connecting two worlds: theatre and the vehicle industry, through personal stories on stage and through meaningful encounters in the framework of the workshops and interviews during the preparations. Against all the alienating processes of capitalist and autocratic tendencies, we aspire to learn about and from each other, create a theatrical platform for working class experiences and to identify what values and aims we share across countries, industries and social class divides.

Supported by the Staféta Program of the Municipality of Budapest.