Tranquility is a living seismograph of the internal quakes and ruptures
of a mother and son trapped within an Oedipal nightmare amidst the
suffocating totalitarian embrace of Communist Hungary. Andor Weér, a
thirty-six-year-old writer, lives in a cramped apartment with his
shut-in mother, Rebeka, who was once among the most celebrated stage
actresses in Budapest. Unable to withstand her maniacal tyranny but
afraid to leave her alone, their bitter interdependence spirals into a
Sartrian hell of hatred, lies, and appeasement. Then Andor meets the
beautiful and nurturing Eszter, a woman who seems to have no past, and
they fall wildly in love at first sight. With a fulfilling life
seemingly within reach for the first time, Andor decides that he is
ready to bring Eszter home to meet Mother. Though Bartis's characters
are unrepentantly neurotic and dressed in the blackest humor, his
empathy for them is profound. A political farce of the highest ironic
order, concluding that freedom is a condition unsuitable for humans,
Tranquility is ultimately, at its splanchnic core, a complex psychodrama
turned inside out, revealing with visceral splendor the grotesque notion
that there's nothing funnier than unhappiness.
