I am Transylvanian of "mixed" blood: Hungarian mainly, with a pinch of German, a dash of Romanian, a smattering of Gypsy. In my adolescence discovered about my Gypsy great-grandfather and was told to keep it a secret. My ex-husband was raised in the same way about his Gypsy grand-father, because if there were a second Auschwitz all of us, including my little son, would be sent to the ovens. Gypsies have many valuable things to share with non-Gypsies. If more of us with partly Gypsy blood "came out", the public would be forced to re-examine their prejudices.

This play could actually be called a collage. It is like a bracelet on which stones are inserted. This bracelet is my writing; the stones are the Gypsy poems, fairy tales and folklore we translated. Briefly, the text is about an actress who tries to get a part in a Gypsy play. As she prepares for the audition, she has some flash-backs to when she was young and desperately hopeful. She eventually returns back in the present where she presents her repertoire at the audition. Nothing innovative. But at a deeper level, she explores her hidden identities. By the end of the performance through the magic of poetry she has become more complete. Getting acquainted with a text implies the rebuilding of a spiritual universe. By making the poems her own, she discovers more about herself. Like an emerging Atlantida, her Gypsy heritage beckons her, recognizes her, engulfs her.

Half suspicious, half thrilled, she abandons her superficiality and pretense. Now she listens to the voices within her, and is their medium. The play's character and performer are not one and the same. By capturing a previous mood, by empowering herself through self-irony, by performing - and listening to the audience's comments - she is constantly reconstructing herself and her relationship with the world. She, like all of us, is the fluidity of a process.

*

I gathered together texts by
Tudor Arghezi, Attila Balogh, Karolyi Bari, Choli Jozsef Daroczi Gyula Horvath, Dyordyis Kantya,
Homeless/ Hontalan Jozsef Kovacs, Julie Lee, Leksa Manush, Gusztav Nagy, Bela Osztojkan,
Rasim Sejdic Charlie Smith, Dragana Stefanovich, Magda Szecs Jozsef Szepesi, Ella Veres, Fabian Voyta
and Gypsy folklore

The Hungarian texts have been translated mainly by
David Fondler, Elizabeth Fisher, Tom Hoover Stephen Humphreys Zsuzsa Kiss,
Magdalena Seleanu, Nidhi Trehan and Ella Veres
Thanks to
Robert Brown, Dr. Istvan Geher, Philippe Labreveux and Peter Szuhay
for their advice and moral support.