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What is happening now in Radnóti without spectators?
We switch to safe mode, who can do it, work online. Unfortunately, this is one of the important performances of our season – Schiller, directed by István Péter Nagy Don Carlos piece. We are waiting, I am afraid we cannot even be sure of a departure in January. We’ll see.
Since the epidemic has not yet peaked, infection rates are so high, we decided not to try for two weeks.
This also adds to the defense. I feel responsible for my co-workers and I believe that this attitude is also necessary socially.
How much confusion does it cause when an ongoing testing process is interrupted?
We, the actors, are trained to prepare for a show in six to eight weeks. The emergency divides the rehearsal periods into several stages that are difficult for the actors to endure. I suggested to colleagues that we look at the situation positively. If the premiere is no longer composed in the traditional way, let’s use the extra time to our advantage. There are workshops, not in Hungary, where a conference is organized in several months. He used to say “you have to take” the role of the director.
By stepping out of the routine of everyday life in this forced closure, everyone now has more sovereign time to immerse themselves in their role and spend more time on the text and situations in mind and soul. You have to live and survive.
Does what you had to learn during the spring quarantine help you survive?
In the spring, the virus was almost a virtual enemy, but now it has become a reality. He is here with us.
Everyone you already know has a personal acquaintance. In what state of mind and mind will the country be next season? This second wave was left in charge of the leaders in charge: “as above, so below”.
We are facing a great economic and mental crisis, we are no longer swimming like that. Provisions would be needed to provide people with the broadest social safety net.
In addition, each situation has winners and the pandemic also has beneficial sectors and companies. A terrible disproportion has developed, they should assume more solidarity, because we live in a world, and in the long run it is not good for them to be affected by massive impoverishment in a country.
Sectors are collapsing, families are losing their existence. We had already cared and helped independent artists in the spring, and now their insecurity is even greater.
Do you agree that the theaters have been closed?
I agree. Falling in front of an auditorium to play for the long haul is not sustainable. However, we maintain the danger. Not to mention, when I sat in an auditorium from the fifties, I felt confident in the mask. However, it was scary to see how my colleagues on stage were exposed. When I play, I’m there, I don’t even realize that as an actor I don’t pay attention to it, I do my thing: the show must go on. But I don’t think it’s morally acceptable in this situation. Last Monday I went to the theater in my own right to decide: Radnóti will definitely stop acting. By the time I got there, the Prime Minister had announced it.
Can online mediation be a solution?
Yes, streaming is an existing alternative. But it is very important that it happens in good quality. We have already done two transmissions with the e-Theater. Both turned out to be a great success.
What does success mean in numbers?
We opened our first broadcast presentation to a thousand people and bought tickets for almost eight hundred, watching almost seven hundred. If the technical quality is good, people will love it. At the same time, I consider the right proportions to be important. Now that we have no income, the best thing for us is to get as many tickets as possible. Since these representations are part of our repertoire, if the epidemic situation has passed, we want to represent them in the theater. We can’t shoot ourselves in the foot.
On the other hand, it is good that people who live in the countryside or abroad can also see some of our performances. I really appreciate that as a country girl.
We also consider a lot when setting ticket prices. Online ticket is 3,900 guilders, which is cheaper than a traditional theater ticket, so the whole family can see the performance. Support tickets cost a bit more, and we see that whoever could have chosen that. and thanks for that.
As a director, you now not only have professional responsibility on your shoulders, but because of the epidemic, literally human lives can depend on your decisions. How to use?
Professional, human and moral aspects must be considered. Unfortunately, you don’t know if everything is the beginning or the end of something.
Both can be true.
Yes. We are living a period of great revaluations, in all aspects.
Contemporary Hungarian drama is very present in Radnóti. Excellent authors write commissioned by the theater. The virus, will the quarantine also appear next season?
I don’t think that after quarantine, people want to see quarantined pieces. Today can have a reason for being if it is associated with a very strong professionalism. As I said in my direction, the direction of Radnóti’s artistic concept is fundamentally characterized by contemporary sound. As today’s art theater, our primary mission is to address people with intentions for improvement and vision for the future.
In the current situation, it is not an easy task to find plays that have relevant themes, valid questions, but that go beyond the mere presentation of problems or taboos. This is not an idealized image, but now it is also important that you do not cut your head off or take it off your head. It is very difficult to plan the next season, and not only in terms of logistics. We don’t know what state of mind people will be in when they can go back to the theater.
So in my value system unification or union comes first. Precisely because I see that the purpose of power today is quite different: division and polarization. Which takes away the possibility of a normal life.
What is normal life?
That we can handle things on our own, that we can respect each other, different opinions, otherness. Respect. Now everything goes against. Unfortunately, the media and social networks, for example, act against you, and the information you provide us, from which very few can choose the point. The average person only sees, reads, what they find pointed out, people get carried away by populism. That is why we have a great responsibility. The most important direction in preparing for the next season is how we can help. The situation of the pandemic affects everyone, nervous, family, financially. It is very important that at least the theater remains a good medium.
It condemns the division that fundamentally characterizes Hungarian theater life today.
This is an unhappy and pointless situation. There is no Christian democrat or liberal theater. We address the issues that exist in all Radnóti performances, which have implications for society as a whole, regardless of the political views of the audience. I also don’t like when it is referred to as “Christian performance” because the message of a belief system performance does not depend on how many times it is referred to. But then, as a Christian theater director, I list the performances Radnót has on the subject of the belief system: Fire running, Market day, Adam’s Apples, Moliere – passion. Christianity is a belief system based on love, I think it would be hard for me to find a performance that one of the best known, the principle of throwing the stone, throwing the bread, would represent better in depth than the Market day. Not the what, but the how is the point.
As artistic director of Radnóti, what do you think of the “how”?
There are differences, but what would be the problem? In the current situation, I also formulate it as a personal task. If you have a vocation, you can never be guided by the opinion of others, you must follow your own norms, convictions, moral and aesthetic values.
In front of a theater, I have to move according to my own vocation, as I was commissioned when I was appointed. Not to change the way the winds blow.
Support SZFE students. Why?
Because these young people did what they knew, what their purity, courage and disposition dictated, while as adults they resisted incredible forces. The attempt to transform the university was also made with the “einstand” method, which is used in many other cases in present-day Hungary. A bill is completed in a matter of moments, there is no real professional consultation with those involved, in a good case, for the sake of appearances, they are asked, their answers are no longer considered. The law is introduced by shovels, and after that it cannot be debated, since it is already a law.
Any dissenting opinion will be labeled anti-regime and pro-government, and the entire professional issue will be politicized. This is a downgrade to any long-term professional level.
What kind of piece would that be?
I am neither a director nor a writer, think of it another way. They may already be writing the SZFE pieces.
What can such a conference be about?
On the unshakable stance for autonomy, but I don’t know … The heartbreaking fact that the generation of 2000 is basically affected here was born after the regime change. The very young, in their twenties, who are no longer affected by the winds of the old system, can be custodians of a cleaner world and do not want to chase trenches from generation to generation, they do not understand revenge, curses.
They are not against the reforms, but they consider that hatred makes no sense and the system will not allow them. Also, it is as if now they want to teach you to separate and think divisively.
It has nothing to do with national consciousness, Christianity, patriotism, the clash of conservative or liberal ideas. These are power games. If possible, we emphasize our differences because then people can turn against each other. I think because we are different, we just have to find common ground. It hurts a lot to say: both sides. There is constant pressure for everyone on both sides of the dividing line to articulate differences.
He has directed the Radnóti Theater for five years. He asked again if everything was true, successfully, suggesting that he believed in what he was doing. The current artistic credibility, professional rank and viability of his theater demonstrate that well chosen direction. What weren’t you thinking when you interrupted?
I knew there was a lot of work, a great responsibility to manage a theater, a company, take care of it, keep it alive, develop it, react to change. She knew it wasn’t going to be easy, she knew she had to be a mother in the meantime. I think I practically managed to achieve what I planned professionally, maybe even more. We were in constant construction, we are, the company is very good. But I didn’t think everything would be so politicized. The expectation on both sides is that you have to react constantly, and not with performances. This is what I expect from both sides. This is very tiring. I wouldn’t have thought of that five years ago. It steals energy and refills nothing.
(Cover Image: MTI Photographer: Szigetváry Zsolt)
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