Magyar News, 1999. szeptember-2000. augusztus (10. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1999-12-01 / 4. szám
BY ERIKA PAPP FABER Tom Thumb in the robbers' den. Naturally in Hungarian costumes. El / nee upon a time... some twelve years before Disney produced the movie "Snow White", two young women in Hungary mounted an exhibition of scenes from various fairy tales (including Snow White, of course), which was an instant hit with the public and the newspapers of Budapest. Entitled "Meseország" ("Land of Fairy Tales"), it opened in the prestigious Wenckheim Palace, a baroque residence turned exhibition hall (today, a library), on December 15th, 1925. Consisting of 17 scenes based on Elek Benedek's Hungarian version of the most popular fairy tales, the exhibit was the brainchild of Edith and Viola Vajk, who left Transylvania at the end of World War I. They designed each scene, sewed the costumes for each character, and tracked down or made all the required props. What started out as the dream of two sisters soon became a family project, as their brother Raul was drawn into constructing the stage-like scenes, which measured only three feet by three feet, and arranging for the lighting of each scene. Their older sister Magda painted the background scenery for each episode. Their retired dad, a widower, took it upon himself to acquire the necessary permits. Having planned it all, they approached a doll factory, and specified that the heads of all the dolls they ordered be one or two sizes smaller than usual, depending on whether they were to represent children or grown-ups to make them more realistic. They had to make the dwarfs for Snow White themselves, using plaster of Paris to form the heads, and constructing their bodies from cloth. The same was true of the witch for Hansel and Gretel. They baked gingerbread to make the witch's house (before there were kits for such things!), used colored pieces of candy for the windows, round biscuits for the roof, and ladyfingers for the fence. (Later on this became a problem, when the “Meseország” was exhibited at the Budapest Zoo. Mice soon destroyed this scene, and Edith and Viola had to reconstruct it all, this time from plaster of Paris.) They found a small spinning wheel for Sleep-ing Beauty, just the right size, in a bazaar, which they painted gold to make it more fairytale-ish. Somewhere they even located a small waterpipe for the scene from Arabian Nights. For Puss-in- Boots, they had to amputate the hind legs of the cat figurine, to replace them with high boots. What they simply could not find, in any toy store, was a wolf for Little Red Riding Hood. They had to whittle his head out of wood, and used bits of fur to form a passable body. Edith and Viola themselves made the tiny lamps for the dwarfs in Snow White, and their brother Raul installed flashlight bulbs in each, hiding the wires in the dwarfs' clothing. This was the only lighting for the scene where they discover the sleeping Snow White just waking up in their bed, while a couple of them are looking at the little table set with tiny plates. Raul also made Snow White's glass coffin. For the first scene of Cinderella, which was set in the kitchen, they bought tiny doves made from sugar, and then painted the decorations on the tiny ornamental plates they set on a typical Hungarian plate rack (which they also had made). Edith and Viola exasperated the salespeople when they went to buy material for the costumes. They would search for just the proper shade of green, for example, for Sheherezade's veils, and the clerk would An elaborate painted backdrop for the Princess and the Frog Page 6
