The creation of the film was supported by Bethlen Gábor Alapkezelő Zrt.

Figura Studio Theatre celebrated its 40th anniversary during the 2024/2025 season. The jubilee was made memorable not only through celebrations but also through a carefully curated artistic program: throughout the season, several initiatives aimed to allow the audience and the ensemble to reflect together on the events, performances, and experiences of the past four decades.

The first form of reflection functioned as a kind of living archive: several iconic performances from the 1980s and 1990s were revived on stage, returning as premieres of the season. The second commemorative project was a performance-like, interactive exhibition that explored the defining productions of the past forty years and their context, maintaining a delicate balance between documentary and experience.

The most ambitious endeavor of the season, however, was a documentary film, which illuminates not only the history of the theatre but also that of the city from a unique perspective. The film follows the life of Figura from its founding in 1984 to the present day: the first six years of its amateur period, followed by the institutionalized period of the Figura Studio Theatre, operating from 1990 onwards.

The film presents the theatre’s history through two main narrative threads. In the first, the development of Figura is traced through personal recollections of interviewees – former and current staff, artists, and figures from the city’s cultural life. The questions are partly individualized and partly common, so that comparing the different perspectives reveals what Figura has meant – and continues to mean – for those who have worked there and for the city.

The second thread employs more elevated, lyrical means: set pieces, props, and even performers from past productions appear at various locations throughout Gheorgheni. In this way, the city’s everyday spaces become a stage – and simultaneously, a metaphor for the film. This arrangement reflects the often unusual, sometimes conflictual, and at other times affectionate relationship between the theatre and the city.