Widely considered to be the most important Hungarian play of the last 20 years, Chickenhead continues to play, after 10 years, to sold-out audiences across Hungary. Performed widely in translation throughout Eastern Europe, this play first shocked the Hungarian public in 1986 with its profuse foul language, pessimistic, realistic portrayal of life among the impoverished in the outskirts of Budapest, and the ensuing tragedy that occurs one afternoon when a teenage boy returns home from the State's 'custody'. First critiqued as a scathing portrayal of the failures of socialism in Hungary, today the play is reviewed in the light of capitalism's failures after the 1989 elections.