Saturday marked my third invitation to the annual party thrown by Jeroen and Lennard for the Eurovision song contest final. I do not understand the appeal of this contest or the whole hoopla around it. Without exception, the songs are appalling, and you have to hear the same songs all year round because it is a song contest, not a judgment on the act. But the party is always great. The food and company are always fantastic. Most of the people take the contest and voting very seriously. I admit I did too this year because second prize was a fresh Kievski tort! The usual bartender/host Robertharm was not in attendance this year, but Chris, dressed in a white dinner jacket, stepped into the breach dishing out the lethal punch concoction like a pro.

Monday night I was invited to the Orkeny Theater where I saw Chekov's excellent "Apatlanul" a few months ago. I had no idea what we were seeing, which was probably for the best because Nora said that some people love it and some people hate it. Odon von Horvath's "Kasimir and Karoline"  was staged with great inventiveness - a cross somewhere between a puppet show and a silent film. All one saw of the stage was a cut out from a black wall as if one were looking at a tv screen with live people sticking their heads out as a child might do with a gutted tv. Most of the actors were recognizable from Hungarian stage and screen, such as Polgar Csaba, Ssandter Anna, Csuja Imre, Macsai Pal, Szeles Laszlo, Hamori Gabriella and Mathe Zsolt. The excellent narrator and piano player who kept it all together and flowing was Darvas Ferenc whom I had seen in a similar capacity several times at the Nyitott Muhely playing the soundtracks to silent movies by Chaplin and others. Although I found the language very difficult to understand because of the predominance of old slang and the speed (I usually understand 90%+ of the language at Hungarian theater, but this time I caught about 10% of it), I could at least follow the gist of the action which was well acted. The surprising physical comedy between Szeles
and Hamori was very well done. At the end, the actors dismantled the stage, or black wall surrounding the "screen" to expose the skeleton of the stage behind the scenes. Pretty cool way to end a play.

Not feeling like walking back in the rain just yet, we went across the street to Castro's Bisztro for a drink and a bite. The service almost non-existent. The Meszaros (Szekszard) Kekfrankos was disappointingly light, while the old standby Irsai Oliver from Nyakas was great as usual. The potato latkes (tocsni/lapcsanka) here are excellent, but I went for the more healthy vegetarian stuffed Indian bread, and Nora had a yummy chocolate mousse.