History – Performance – Memory: Richard III and the Subversion of Theatre in Hungary, 1955

All translations from Hungarian are mine.This paper looks at two Richard III production in Hungary, the latter of which has since achieved legendary status. Put on just before the 1956-revolution it was often reinterpreted as a revolutionary act, the best example of the early, spontaneous subversion of Shakespeare’s plays in Hungary. However, the play was performed in the first theatre of the nation, strictly controlled by central cultural authorities, directed by one of the major figures of new Socialist propaganda theatre, Tamás Major. Therefore the production raises fundamental questions about the nature of subversion and Shakespeare’s role in it, as well as about the sources a theatre historian can work with. These are the questions the paper wishes to answer by tracking down the history of a Hungarian 1955-performance of Richard III

Shakespeare az Ac(z)élfüggöny mögött - Shakespeare a Kádár-rendszer magyar színpadain = Shakespeare Behind the Iron Curtain - Shakespeare on the Stages of the Hungarian Kádár-regime

Időtartam: 2007-07-01 - 2008-12-31 A kutatás elsődleges célja a Kádár-korszakbeli magyar Shakespeare-kutatások vizsgálata volt. Az 1952 és 1989 közötti korszak jelentősebb Hamlet, magyar Hamlet-átirat és a keserű komédiák előadásaival foglalkozott, amelyeket az előadás-kritika (performance criticism) módszerei szerint mutatott be és elemzett. A kutatás a politika és a színház kapcsolatát, illetve Shakespeare szerepét vizsgálta a szocialista magyar színházkultúrában. A korszak Hamlet előadásain keresztül a főbb színházi és értelmezési trendekre is felhívta a figyelmet, illetve választ keresett a keserű komédiák megnövekedett szerepére a Kádár-korszakban. A kutatás részeredményeit több külföldi és hazai publikációban jelentettem meg. A kutatás egyik lezáró pontjaként az eredményeket önálló, Amerikában, az Edwin Mellen Press-nél megjelent kötetben publikáltam. | Time of research: 2007-07-01 - 2008-12-31 The prime aim of my research was to focus on Shakespeare productions in Kádár-regime Hungary. Using the methods of performance criticism I have examined the productions of Hamlet, Hungarian Hamlet rewritings, and those of the so called problem plays which hit the Hungarian stages between 1952 and 1989. My main concern was to find ways of modelling the relationship between politics and the theatre during the Socialist regime, as well as to place Shakespeare in these interrelations. Through the study of the main Hamlet productions of the era I wished to call attention to the main artistic and interpretative trends of the Kádár-regime. The other major concern of my study was to find answers for the unprecedented success and popularity of the so called problem plays on the Hungarian stages of the time. Some parts of my study were published in Hungarian and foreign volumes and journals, while the main results of my research appeared in book format at the end of 2008 in America, published by the Edwin Mellen Press

PädagogIn ≠ PädagogIn

Im Rahmen dieser Arbeit wird die Identität von Studierenden vor Beendigung des Diplomstudiums Bildungswissenschaft an der Universität Wien beforscht. Die vorliegende Abhandlung besteht aus einem theoretischen und einem empirischen Teil. Die Erhebung mittels Fragebögen erfolgte in DiplomandInnenseminaren des Sommersemesters 2010. Die individuelle, aktuelle Identitätslage wird anhand des Identitätsmodells der fünf Säulen nach Hilarion Gottfried Petzold transparent gemacht und weiterführend Aspekte der beruflichen pädagogischen Identität fokussiert. Dies zielt auf die Auseinandersetzung mit der beruflichen Identität universitärer PädagogInnen bzw. BildungswissenschafterInnen ab

“A rose by any other name”. Contemporary Hungarian Shakespeare Adaptations on Stage and in Cyberspace

The essay is a survey of recent Hungarian Shakespeare adaptations. In the first part, the essay looks at adaptations that experiment with the Shakespearean text, yet they still market themselves as Shakespeare productions; while they keep most of the Shakespearean plotlines, they freely alter the structure of the Shakespearean texts, dismantle chronologies, shift language registers, and contextualize the plays in a contemporary Hungarian setting. Examples are Örkény Theatre’s 2019 Macbeth and The Shaxpeare Car Wash in Kertész Street. In the second part, the essay moves over to appropriations that are not straightforward rewritings of Shakespeare’s play; they use Shakespeare and the Shakespearean plotlines as cultural metaphors. The plays we discuss (Káva Cultural Workshop’s 2016 Lady Lear and Éva Enyedi’s 2018 Lear’s Death) both adapt King Lear, and strangely, they both appropriate the character of King Lear as a symbol to discuss aging in a contemporary setting. The final example the paper introduces is a Shakespeare burlesque, written by Zsolt Györei and Csaba Schlachtovszky, that premiered at the Gyula Shakespeare Festival in 2021. The essay contests that although the play camouflages itself as a 19th-century melodramatic tragedy, using reflective nostalgia, it becomes a voice of cultural plurality, healthy self-reflexivity and subversion

Them and Us – Pintér Béla’s Blood-Red, Off-White, Dark Green and András Urbán’s Sacra Hungarica in Context

The paper wishes to document a recent trend visible in the Hungarian independent theatre scene – a turn towards social, political issues, as well as a growing sensitivity towards the visible tensions in Hungarian political discourse. It does so through the analysis and the contextualization of two recent Hungarian independent theatrical productions. Studio K’s 2019 Sacra Hungarica is an in-your-face attempt to portray the current distortion of the language and the abuse language is used for, while Béla Pintér’s Blood Red, Off-White, Dark Green, a clever Oedipus Rex paraphrase that depicts marginalization, racism, and nationalism in a pointedly non-pc allegory.The essay introduces the status of independent theatre vis-à-vis politics after 1989 and will delineate the changes the conservative governments brought into the alternative scene. Then, through an in-depth analysis of the above-mentioned two productions, it discusses the various means of theatricality they use to comment on contemporary Hungary

Glajar, Valentina, Alison Lewis and Corina L. Petrescu (eds.). 2016. Secret Police Files from the Eastern Bloc – Between Surveillance and Life Writing. Rochester, NY: Camden House, Boydell and Brewer. 237 pp.

Glajar, Valentina, Alison Lewis and Corina L. Petrescu (eds.). 2016. Secret Police Files from the Eastern Bloc – Between Surveillance and Life Writing. Rochester, NY: Camden House, Boydell and Brewer. 237 pp