HISTORY,
HISTORY
Photo by Domen Ulbl
Photo by Domen Ulbl
HISTORY, HISTORY, HISTORY
By Deborah Pearson
All of our histories are a succession of accidents
In 1956, there was a popular uprising against the USSR in Hungary. The battle was fought
primarily from the Corvin Cinema, and the uprising led to one of the largest refugee crises of
the twentieth century. In a live commentary screening of a 1956 comedy about football,
scheduled to premiere at the Corvin Cinema the week of the uprising, Deborah Pearson
unlocks a surprisingly personal story.
A documentary, performed live, the performance runs the length of and is timed alongside
the film, using interviews with the exiled screenwriter and people involved with the film to
playfully reflect on immigration, suppression, and our personal links with history. This is a
show for lovers of cinema, and for anyone who has stared at pictures of their ancestors a
little too long.
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Reviews
– The Fix Magazine
The show’s poignant humanity, its bittersweet reflections on the relentlessness of time
and its potent blend of uplifting possibility and heartrending pathos make for an
enchanting 90 minutes.”
– Musings on Film
“History History History is so strong it deserves to be enshrined as a film of its own; it does
not deserve to be ethereal, but that is part of its beauty.”
– Deborah Withers, author of Feminism, Digital Culture and the Politics of Transmission
“History, History, History is a performance that reflects, implicitly, on the emergence of
historical possibility as a creative, personal and collective process.”
– Kris Hatlett’s Mayfest Shorts Review
“A magnetic piece of work that does what all great theatre should, probes and prods at its
subject and ultimately reveals it in a new light.”
Credits
Author: Deborah Pearson
Performance: Deborah Pearson
Dramaturgy: Daniel Kitson
Artistic advisors: Tania El Khoury, Laura Danneqin