Liliom: A Legend in Seven Scenes and a Prologue

Liliom is a carousel barker in the amusement parks of Budapest: handsome, violent, shiftless, and devastating to the servant girls who fall for him. When Julie, a young servant, marries him despite warnings, she discovers she's pregnant. Desperate to provide something more than poverty, Liliom attempts a robbery. It fails. Cornered by police, he stabs himself rather than submit to arrest. But death is only the beginning. The play's legendary second act unfolds in a celestial courtroom, where Liliom is put on trial before the magistrates of the afterlife. They see through his bravado and bluster to the small, hidden spark of goodness beneath. His sentence: sixteen years in the purifying fires, then a return to earth for one chance at redemption through a single good deed. Molnár's masterpiece asks whether a man who spent his life as a bully and a failure can ever truly change. It is brutal, tender, and hilariously absurd in equal measure, a legend that refuses to let easy answers stand.