It is 1973, and the poet János Pilinszky is in Paris. He falls ill, and his friend’s fiancée, Sheryl Sutton, Robert Wilson’s actress, takes care of him. She gives him food, makes tea and adjusts the poet’s pillow, who is lying in bed with fever. These meetings and the performances of Robert Wilson inspired the book ‘Conversations with Sheryl Sutton’, which is an essay-novel-dialogue about theatre, silence and human relations, about a new form.
In 1984 the poet and novelist Ottó Tolnai met Sheryl Sutton in New York and wrote a prose-poem on the meeting which has not been finished yet, but has still given a tool for the creative work of the two dancers. Their dance performance shows and depics the relationship between Sheryl and Pilinszky, as described by the poet, and is accompanied by the music of Ákos Szelevényi, who integrated the sounds of nature into his work.

There is a chair on the stage, with a woman sitting on it with a box in her hand. Some questions can be raised. What is in the square-shaped box? Sheryl Sutton was holding a black bird, a creature that can be defined. But what are we hiding? Pictures of Pilinszky, or marbles?
There is a chair on the stage, with a woman sitting on it with a box in her hand. The first scene of our performance. Silence, the sounds of nature, chirping of birds and crickets. This is our silence, in the intimate, cosy warmth of the stage.

Special thanks to all who helped us realise this performance with their mental, spiritual and physical presence.

dance, choreography, video: Döbrei Dénes, Varga Henrietta
light: Lydie Carras
costume: Bjanka Ursulov
set: Varga Tünde
music: Szelevényi Ákos, Laurent Rochelle

ddebrei@yahoo.fr