Keep Smiling is a one-act play for five characters, unfolding over the course of a single group-therapy session.
I wrote the play in 2023. It premiered as a series of staged readings presented by fourteen Hungarian and international Hungarian theatre companies. The program was coordinated by Fiatal Drámaírók Háza (The House of Young Playwrights). Keep Smiling was created for their call for submissions on the theme “East”. It became one of the three winning plays selected for presentation.
Synopsis
Four strangers in search of healing, and a Guru who promises a smile.
The play takes place in a center called Keep Smiling, where an anonymous group session uses the “therapeutic power of laughter” to ease emotional trauma—pushing the idea of positivity to its toxic limits. The participants arrive for different reasons, but they share one thing: they have all lost something—trust, stability, or themselves. One character appears cynical, yet she is the only one who truly pays attention to the others.
The play’s dynamic grows out of the tension between the Guru’s idealized, superficial methods and the protagonist’s skeptical yet deeply empathetic approach.
Featured image: Poster created for the Berlin performance
(Berlin, Zacc Stage / Budapest, House of Young Playwrights, 2023)
Interior image: Still from the performance in Marbella, Spain
(CCCM – Centro Cultural Cortijo de Miraflores / Budapest, House of Young Playwrights, 2023)
