Magyar Hírek, 1987 (40. évfolyam, 1-23. szám)
1987-11-03 / 21. szám
Where is the Hungarian theatre heading? Where does the Hungarian theatre stand and where is it heading? The question is frequently asked by those in the trade as well as by theatre goers. Our talking partner on this oceasion is Ferenc Sík, a director of the Budapest National Theatre, art director of the Fortress Theatre of Gyula. He established his renown by directing first performances of Hungarian plays. His choice of plays shows a preference for historical dramas with a message for our days. During the years he spent at Pécs there was close cooperation between the theatre and contemporary playwrights, which made that town in Southern Transdanubia a prime workshop of the Hungarian drama. The repertory of the Fortress Theatre of Gyula achieved a definite character which made it the home of Hungarian historical dramas under his direction. The play he most recently directed at Gyula was András Sütő’s Az Álomkommandó (The Dream Commando). The intellectual influence of this summer theatre cannot be gainsaid. Ferenc Sík also directed the performances of Romeo and Juliet and the Merchant of Venice in recent seasons at the National Theatre. The great variety of colours in past theatrical seasons, its countless extremes manifest in standard, acceptance of objectives, important professional and considerable public successes, sometimes in failures suggest that just like the theatre everywhere in the world, the Hungarian theatre is also struggling with a crisis of values. The world classics are performed in the Hungarian theatres side by side with modern plays, classics of Hungarian literature are presented as well as new works, but traditional operetta performances and American musicals are also frequent. What is the general image that can be discerned from all this? “When my generation took over we were really dissatisfied. We thought that the previous generation failed to give an answer to the challenges, which could make the theatre really exciting. The next generation, however, is blaming us because they say we could not decide where the place of the Hungarian theatre was within Europe and the world. I think that it would have been one of the most important of objectives, to find our place and our native theatrical idiom in an indivisible European culture. The aim is to produce works that are parts of the national as well as to universal culture. It is our business to ensure that the Hungarian theatre coexists in unity with the European theatre without becoming lost in it.” "Is all of that evident equally in content and form?” “Some countries have discovered a theatrical native language that feeds on its own roots. They are expressing their own dramatic traditions and as a result they shape the classics of the world in their own image. Unfortunately no homogenous image of the Hungarian theatre has as yet developed. But some things give hope. Theatrical ideals that exist side-byside, which find expression amongst the various theatres, indeed, often even within one theatre contest against each other today, but they also inevitably influence each other and this must sooner or later bear fruit.” “I think that opposed tastes confront each other so much today that their relation must sooner or later turn to love. I think the solution will be to heed what György Bessenyei explained in the 18th century: ‘Every nation becomes learned in its own tongue, never in a foreign one.’ Translating that to the theatre: what we need is our own dramatic native idiom. And that can be divided again into two parts: content, that is characteristically Hungarian conceptual problems, and the formal element, the acting style that springs from traditional Hungarian culture. My life was more or less spent in directing Hungarian first performances of varying qua lit y with varying degrees of success. 1 am certain that we would have fared better had more of us accepted this noble and honourable duty. The cause of the Hungarian theatre would also have gained. Perhaps I would have fared better also if I had more time to concentrate on works clearly promising success. I am at last beginning to think that the fight for the Hungarian theatre is fit last becoming a public issue. This would be in the interest of the play as well as of the stage. There are gems lying about, they should be cut and polished in differing ways.” “The ideal state would be for important performances to be the best. But it often happens that the unimportant things are better done and what is important does not achieve the same standards from the aspect of acting or directing. I feel that Hungarian plays tend to avoid the essential. I think we must give words back their status and then the theatre will also get the place it deserves. Great actor personalities have always played a decisive role in the Hungarian theatre. Outstanding events were always linked to their names, they were the hall-marks of a theatre. I think as long as we understand and acknowledge this, if we do not want to be something different to what we really are, which our traditions qualify as, for then, and only then, we can reestablish the prestige of the Hungarian theatre.” KATALIN RÖNA MARTYRED IN HUNGARY, BURIED IN VENICE Father Luke, a monk of San Lazaro welcomed me in Venice with a somewhat bizarr idea: he suggested that I should find out where the remains of Saint Gerardus known in Hungary as Saint Gellert are in Venice. He assured me that the mortal remains of the saintly bishop were indeed in Venice - but since almost nobody knew that I would be unlikely to get far with my enquiries. We addressed a number of visitors in Saint Mark’s — in English, German and French and natives in Italian. A German couple were of the opinion that his grave was in Budapest. They had not seen it, but they thought it might be somewhere on that hill in Buda, where St. Gellért’s statue stands. Then I tried the travel books to find out something about the missionary to Hungary. No clues there either. Father Luke (his lay name was Miklós Fogolyén) just smiled, he knew the hopelessness of my endeavour from the start, since only a handful of people knows the resting place of the Venice monk, whose fate it was to follow the call of Saint Stephen to Hungary to convert the Hungarians and to be martyred there during a heathen uprising. Yet the Venetians should know, for Saint Gellert is buried in the church of Santa Maria e Donato at Murano, one of the islands of Venice. * It’s high noon, yet the church is utterly deserted. I would not notice St. Gellért’s embalmed body in the covered glass coffin if Father Luke had not called my attention to it. A few years ago a marble altar stood in this church which was dedicated to his memory, but is was demolished during restoration, and the pieces are now lying about in the court-yard. Father Luke knows the place intimately and when the chaplain comes to close the door he stops him to enquire The St. Gellért statue in Budapest about the old and ornate sarcophagus of St Gellért. “Do you mean the 1900 gift of the Hungarians?” asks the young priest. “Precisely. The young lady came from Hungary just to see it. . .” The chaplain hesitates for a moment then motions to follow him. The rusty lock creaks as he opens the door of the belfry. We are groping our way behind our guide in the semidarkness on the dusty, crumbling steps unused even by the ringer. Here too the changes are rung by a pushbutton system. The carved and painted sarcophagus of St Gellért is gathering dust in the loft amongst a multitude of odds and ends, the Hungarian coat of arm beside it. Tears fill the eyes of Father Luke as he wipes the dust from the damaged coat of arms. “I worked hard for years have the mortal remains of St Gellért restored to a condition worthy of him. Unfortunately I did not come to an understanding either with the church or the local historic monuments authority. Since they found the relics of Donato, the eponymous saint of the church of Murano, Gellért evidently was of no use. He is just in the way.” I accompany Father Luke back to his home on picturesque San Lazaro Island, to thumb through old Hungarian books and encyclopaedias. The data we find indicate that the coffin of St Gellért was found in 1903 and placed in the side-aisle of the O-Csanád church. There is no mention of his body. Father Luke ascertained that Lhe enbalmed body of St Gellért was stolen from Himgary by Venetians in 1402. "How did you happen to start research in this field?” “Had the relics of St Gellért not been disturbed I might not have started to delve into this problem. My daily work is in a very different field. I live in the monastery of the Isle of San Lazaro and teach Armenian novices there and youngsters of Armenian descent in Venice. I was twelve years old when I came to the island from Hungary. I followed the footsteps of my uncle, Vilmos Fogolyan, when I became a priest-teacher. This is where I became truly familiar with Armenian culture, but I have not forgotten my years in Hungary. I was still at secondary school, when I translated a Hungarian juvenile novel into Armenian, later works of Gábor Garai and Géza Hegedűs, which were published in our own journal, Hay Endanik, as well as in the journal Bazmavep. As far as my translating work is concerned I followed the example of my late uncle, who translated Petőfi’s poems, as well as the novels The Stars of Eger, The Boys of Pál utca and Imre Madách’s dramatic poem The Tragedy of Man into Armenian. Besides my teaching and translating work I collect contemporary Armenian journals for our library and an in charge of research into Armenian liturgy. But my most ardent desire is connected with St Gellért. It would make me happy if the relics of the Saint martyred in Hungary found a proper place of safekeeping in Hungary itself.” ÉVA ÁROKSZÁLLÁSI 30
