According to the analysis of Małgorzata Szpakowska from the beginning of 1983, contemporary Hungarian dramaturgy was characterized by the concept of an outsider-hero who “stays out of the way,” either due to his own choice or due to having been pushed aside to the margin by external events. As Szpakowska observes, a descent into alcoholism is a frequent “form of withdrawal” for the protagonists of Hungarian dramas. Examples of such characters can be found in the stage works by György Schwajda, István Csurka and Imre Sarkadi, published in Poland in the period 1965–1982.

The authors of the mentioned dramas make the outside world the reason for an escape into alcoholism. István Herceg, a young poet and writer from one of Csurka's plays expresses it directly in one of his drunken monologues:

The protagonist of Schwajda's Anthem, written in the early 1980s, is an alcohol addict as well, who sank to the very bottom of life, where the only reality is “extreme poverty coupled with addiction”:

“Schwajda's protagonist does not look for excuses,” writes Małgorzata Szpakowska. “Right at the bottom where he ended up, he managed (with the help of his wife) to achieve a kind of a bizarre adaptation to the reality; we are dealing here with a specific form of homeostasis, which may seem desperate from the outside, but in a given situation is the choice of the lesser evil. All the protagonist of ‘Anthem’ wants is to be left alone. And rightly so, as the ‘help’ offered by his neighbors or state institutions only leads to greater misfortune. ‘No, we don't need any help, we don't need any help,’ repeats his wife, Aranka.”

Spiró

Chicken Head by György Spiró is a drama about the extraordinary cruelty and absurdity of an action, the participants of which act as if they had no influence on anything. The action takes place around a carpet hanger in the backyard of a tenement house in one of the worse districts of an unnamed city.