Humour of the Absurd

It wasn't just the comedy and humour, but the absurdity and layered subtext of The Horse that caught Sunil Shanbag's attention.

- By DEEPALI DHINGRA

The play, based on a text by Hungarian playwright Julius Hay, is a piercing commentary on authority, greed, and power, and it wastes no time pulling you in: “Welcome to the city of Rome! Come on in, make yourself at home. Here is where you tell your story of misery or glory.”

Shanbag first came across this retelling of Emporer Caligula almost 40 years ago. “I was quite taken in by how Julius Hay retold the story of Caligula in a loosely fictional way to comment on a situation that must have existed in Hungary in the 1960s. This pattern repeats itself in history—where there is an authoritarian leader who convinces his people to drop their rationality and buy into a myth,” he says.