I. The Bear
Nelli Szűcs plays a reclusive young and all-but-starved widow so delicately and charmingly, without a wink or a nod that, while everyone knows her sighs, grief and entire image are false, they are still taken aback when this self-conscious, then offended and naïve woman "kills the bear" (József Varga) like an amazon.
Zsolt Trill plays an elderly butler, he blends the colours of a wise clown and Firs to create Luka the servant and surrogate father. A rewarding performance by an actor comparable to the best stage clowns in the history of theatre.
II. On the Harmful Effects of Tobacco
An incredibly thin pencil-man wearing a tight tail-coat – a scarecrow figure – steps in front of his “audience” to present a serious, pedantic monologue on the evils of smoking. He is like a caricature scientist in the funny papers. The audience roars with laughter during the henpecked husband's soliloquy, then the laughter sours and becomes painful: the helpless, scared little man becomes more and more pathetic, shrinks almost, leaving in the spectator's throat a growing lump whose grip can only be released in tears.
III. A Marriage Proposal
Melinda Orosz is an ugly spinster to be married off urgently. This gentle, quiet and polite damsel-of-the-house turns a sharp-tongued shrew crying hysterically. The father and the suitor watch this metamorphosis in horror.
Hungarian theatre and opera director, teacher.
He was born in Berehove (Ukraine) in 1964.
He graduated in Hungarian literature and linguistics from Uzhhorod State University (1985). He taught literature and history for two years. In 1992, he graduated in theatre directing from the Karpenko-Kary State Academy of Theatre and Cinema in Kyiv.
In 1993, he founded his own company, the Gyula Illyés Hungarian National Theatre in Berehove, of which he is still the Principal Director.
In 2004, he was appointed Principal Director of the Hungarian State Opera House. In 2006 - 2013, he was Director of the Csokonai National Theatre in Debrecen.
Since 2013, he has been the Director General of the National Theatre. In 2014, he founded the National Theatre's MITEM festival (Madách International Theatre Meeting).
Since 2023, he has been a member of the International Theatre Olympics Committee and Artistic Director of the 2023 Budapest Theatre Olympics.
He has also directed at the National Academic Theatre in Kyiv (Leszya Ukrayinka Theatre), the Alexandrinsky Theatre in St Petersburg) and the Hungarian State Opera House.
His performances have toured Europe from Stockholm to Moscow and Tbilisi, from Strasbourg to Nancy and Kyiv.
He has received many awards, including Ukraine's Artist of Merit (2002), the Meyerhold Prize (2009, Moscow) and the Kossuth Prize (2011).
His films include Liberté 56, The Boy Who Turned into a Deer.
He has taught acting at the Karpenko-Kary State Academy of Theatre and Cinema in Kyiv and at the University of Kaposvár. Since 2020, he has been the master of a directing class at the University of Theatre and Film in Budapest.
He has been a member of the Hungarian Academy of Arts since 2005. In 2008, he co-founded the Hungarian Theatre Society and has been its President since. Between 2010 and 2013, he also served as Chairman of the Theatre Arts Committee under the Minister of Human Resources. Since 2020, he has been Chairman of the Board of the foundation operating the University of Theatre and Film in Budapest.
