Kerényi Ferenc szerk.: Színháztudományi Szemle 28. (Budapest, 1991)
IDEGEN NYELVŰ ÖSSZEFOGLALÓK
Professional Acting in Hungary is 200 Years Old On the occasion of the bicentenary the Hungarian Theatre Institute and Museum (formerly known as the Hungarian Theatre Institute) organized a two-day scientific conference in Budapest on October 24 and 25, in the Székely Bertalan Room of the State Opera House. Lectures held on the first day treated the general state of affairs of the bicentenary in a narrower sense, the questions of the coming into existence of the national states and their theatrical aspects in Eastern and Middle Europe, and the history of the effects generated by a relationship maintained with the most developed of theatrical cultures in Europe. The second day took for its themes questions of methodology; aesthetic and theoretical possibilities of performance-analysis and the extension of the existing collection on the history of the theatre. Of the 14 lectures 12 are printed here. Mr. Lajos Kán tor's lecture: H ami et in Kol ozsvár 200 Years Ago has been published twice already, first in a somewhat abridged form in Élet és Irodalom (a literary weekly) in October 1990, then in book-form by the Héttorony Publishing Company. As the manuscript had not reached us by the time of going to press we regret that we are unable to print the lecture of Mr. Heinrich Huesmann (Munich). Mr. Huesmann" s lecture was entitled: Of Some German Touring Companies in Hungary or Theatre Documentation 1990. Mr. István Fried (Budapest) held a lecture On the Beginnings of the Theatre Movement in Hungary in the Context of Eastern Middle Europe. The lecture presented the possible literary and sociological approaches to the topic. On the basis of information collected from about 100 years of theatre history, he concluded that, although not always at the same pace, the theatre movements of the region did develop on parallel lines. That theatres should play in the national languages was first made possible by that phase of cultural changes that proclaimed the ideas of the Enlightenment. This movement has always been linked with the question of national drama. An important role was played in the region by German companies bringing a particular brand of programmes and tradition. Theatre movements were not unified. First there was a division between the commercial and the literary type of plays and later certain different views surfaced concerning "nationalizing" and originality. National theatre was a precursor of the creation of national states and thus became part of legend; drama in the region, however, remained fragmentary. Mr. Richard Prazak (Brno) lectured on Czech Actors and Musicians in Pest-Buda at the Turn of the Century. Czech artists and musicians excercised their influence through the Germans. As composers they are responsible for a good part of the operettas of the era, their influence is felt in the romantic style of Hungarian music, they wrote music to Hungarian topics and libretti. Mr. Andreas Kotte (Berlin) held a lecture entitled: National Acting in tho National Theatre? Mr. Kotte took the example of August Wilhelm Iffland, dramatist and manager of the Berlin National Theatre between 1796 and 1806. The example served to highlight the question why there was no German National Theatre. The Prussian court placed the theatre under direct royal authority which was to carry out the educational programme of
