Comedy-Drama/ 8 characters, 6 Men, 2 Women/ Full Length, Two Acts
Synopsis:
Confined to a hospital bed in the farthest reaches of Africa, the great French poet Arthur Rimbaud spends his time harrassing the nurse and penning letters to the local Emperor, demanding compensation for his duties as a gun-runner. He receives an unexpected visit from the love of his life, the even greater French poet Paul Verlaine, whom he hasn’t seen in eighteen years. Their strained reunion — strained because the last time they were together Verlaine shot Rimbaud — is made worse by the arrival of Verlaine’s son and first wife, who have their own scores to settle with both men. When it turns out the tumour on Rimbaud’s knee is malignant and inoperable, he realizes the time has come to set matters straight with his various visitors.
Arthur and Paul is a witty, wise, and highly theatrical speculation on how one of the most fervent literary love affairs of all might really have ended — not with a bang, but with one last grand gesture.
Amateur and professional rights:
Zsolt Pozsgai
H-7630 Pécs, Tétény u. 28.
Ph.: 00-36-30-2791324
horatiofilm@gmail.com
About the Playwright: Award-winning dramatist Zsolt Pozsgai’s plays have been seen worldwide. He is a winner of the European Drama Award, and three-time winner of the Hungarian Playwright’s Competition. Liselotte in May, his most performed play, premiered at the Deutsches Theater, Budapest, Hungary, in May, 2002 and has since been seen in over 22 stagings from New York City to Geneva, Switzerland to Vancouver, Canada. By the end of 2014, 57 of Pozsgai’s pieces, including tragedies, comedies, farces, and plays with music, had been performed in 87 theatres. He has also worked widely as a stage director, and as a writer and director for film and TV.
Arthur and Paul was premiered at the Madách Theatre, Budapest in 1995.