Tanulmányok Budapest Múltjából 31. (2003)

VÁROSTÖRTÉNETI TANULMÁNYOK - Irás Katalin: A Terézkörúti Színpad színházi részvénytársaság 363-395

A TERÉZKÖRÚTI SZÍNPAD SZÍNHÁZI RÉSZVÉNYTÁRSASÁG The Teréz Boulevard Stage Theatrical Share Company The essay presents the most well-known metropolitan cabaret active between 1923 and 1939, pointedly focusing on its financial activity. The enterprise started in the recession period following the world war, so already from 1925 it only could be sustained on provisional credit. ín 1926, to increase income the company rented the Royal Orfeum, in addition they attempted to let out the theatre hall for other purposes. The financial crisis reached the slightly profitable but growing business in 1930, temporary credit was replaced by long-lasting credit, the amount of which exceeded even the registered capital of the company after 1935. The functioning of the Teréz Boulvard Stage was determined by the contrast between artistic success, popularity on one side and the yearly increasing financial loss on the other. The crisis effected all the other theatres in the capital; the financial hardship can be linked with the great number of theatres, the small number of visitors, the popularity of cinemas and the many items of taxation. The business federation of metropolitan theatres wanted to handle the crisis by the repeal of operating expenses and that of the amusement tax, yet, the negotiations with the capital going on for many years resulted only in the reduction of the tax and the financial support of some of the bigger theatres. The smaller private theatrical enterprises, such as the Teréz Boulevard Stage still had no support of any kind. The authors and actors of the Teréz Boulevard Stage represented the whole of the genre. In the period between the two world wars the cabaret was the field of freelance journalists and second-class playwrights. This phenomenon caused decline in quality, against which Endre Nagy, one of the founders of the genre fought with less and less success, and finally had to resign in 1929. It was a characteristic feature of the cabaret, that the author of the shows and the compere was the same person (Endre Nagy, László Vadnai, László Békeffi). Endre Nagy was the personification of political cabaret, his worthy successor was László Békeffi, who worked as the author and compere of the Teréz Boulevard Stage between 1933 and 1935. Béla Salamon was the most popular actor of the cabaret who, until 1933 as a member of the theatre, later as a permanent guest appeared in almost every show; his line was the petty bourgeois of Budapest. The other main attractions of the theatre were the dialogues of Hacsek and Sajó by László Vadnai. According to the few remaining sources the artists of the cabaret earned one third - one fourth of the dramatic actors' income and occasionally this led to serious conflicts. The staging of older shows, tendency of the 1930s, indicated the growing importance of business standpoints. At the same time the variety, which was typical of the genre vanished, the shows shifted towards one-act comedies. The unfavourable financial situation and the anti-Jewish laws coming into force caused the closing down of the Teréz Boulevard Stage. Nevertheless, Aladár Roboz maintained the share company till 1944, although its functioning was confined only to formal general meetings. 395