The Plague (Die Pest)

In a version by András Dömötör and Enikő Deés

"Rieux knew that the plague bacillus never dies or disappears for good; and that perhaps the day would come when the plague would rouse up its rats again and send them forth to die in a happy city."

A strange epidemic has broken out in the Algerian coastal town of Oran. The doctor Bernard Rieux suspects what everyone else thinks is impossible: that it is the plague. A state of emergency is declared, the city is hermetically sealed off, all links to the outside world are severed. The disease begins to claim more and more victims, gigantic hospital wards are built, later mass graves. The doctor knows that his fight against the epidemic is futile. The bacillus remains invincible even if, after nine months, the plague leaves Oran as suddenly as it came. Albert Camus’ world-famous novel questions people’s power to act in the face of disaster. Written during the Second World War, it is regarded as an allegory of the Resistance’s struggle against the occupation of France and, more universally, of how we confront the metaphysical problem of evil.