Mária evangéliuma
The Gospel According to Mary

Summary/Abstract: Nicoleta Esinencu is one of the best-known contemporary Moldavian playwrights and theatre-makers. The Gospel According to Mary, published in our present issue in the Hungarian translation of Orsolya András, is the first of the two texts written by Esinencu within the project Who Run the World. The first production of this same text was a cooperation between teatru-spălătorie (laundry theatre) Theater Rampe Stuttgart. Esinencu’s drama performs a feminist rewriting of the canonical text with the aim to point at the current gender inequality and relations of social hierarchy. If the Bible is a basic text that records and promotes the patriarchal order, then the author attempts to subvert and rewrite it with the intention of change and transformation. The powerfully gripping dramatic text develops along two lines, which differ from each other linguistically as well: the archaic Biblical fragments are interrupted by the confessions of women of different ages and social statuses. This contrast enhances not only the deep cultural embedding of gender inequality, while connecting the past to the present, but also points to the performative, active possibility of change.

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