Performance(s)
Venue and date:
Third Theatre of Pécs
2023. 05. 16., 19:00
2023. 05. 17., 19:00
Company:
Kárpátaljai Megyei Magyar Drámai Színház
Fotó: Eöri Szabó Zsolt
Theatre

The Totes

Performance(s)
Venue and date:
Third Theatre of Pécs
2023. 05. 16., 19:00
2023. 05. 17., 19:00
Company:
Kárpátaljai Megyei Magyar Drámai Színház
Author:
István Örkény
Director:
Attila Vidnyánszky
Stage designer: 
Olekszandr Bilozub
Costume designer: 
Klára V. Csolti
Dramaturge: 
András Kozma
Synopsis

,,On January 13, 1943, the boulder with which the Hungarian army in Sisyphus had met its fate began to fall in the Don bend... Sixty thousand men froze to death there, in the mine fire, in the icy wind, in the snow... The Totes is not about them, or not only about them, perhaps even about something else, but I always thought about them when I was writing it,” Örkény writes in the preface to The Totes. This is the idea that was also the starting point of the Berehove performance.

This is also what makes Attila Vidnyánszky' s directing so special. After its premiere in 2004, it was written that it is not about a war of the past, or about war in general, but specifically evokes the Second World War, in the spirit of Örkény. In the last 18 years, a lot has changed in the world, which rhymes with the tragicomedy of the vulnerable without direct references — as the writer called the Totes.

Nowadays, unfortunately, another layer of meaning has been added to the basic situation of the play, as it is impossible not to see the tragedy of the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian war in the lives of its characters. In this light, the soldiers' songs are different, the figure of the postman who does not pass on bad news is different, and of course the Major is different.

Cast
Zsolt Trill
László Tóth
Nelli Szűcs
Anita Polyák
József Rácz
István Sőtér
Attila Ferenci
Ildikó Béres
József Varga
Imre Szabó
Viktor Ivaskovics
Attila Ferenci, Attila Kristán, Natália Gál, Magdolna Vass, Ibolya Orosz, Melinda Orosz
Infos
Runtime: 165 min
Language: Hungarian
Acts: 2
Age limit: 12
The Director
Fotó: Fülöp László

Attila Vidnyánszky (Berehove, Ukraine; March 8, 1964) is a Kossuth and Jászai Mari Prize-winning Hungarian theatre director and filmmaker, founder of the Gyula Illyés Hungarian National Theatre in Berehove (Transcarpathian Regional Hungarian Drama Theatre). In the course of his work, he created a special stage language, which he defines with the term “poetic theatre”, which contrasts with the naturalist-realist theatrical traditions and the aesthetics of bourgeois theatre.
In 1985, he obtained a degree in humanities at the Uzhhorod State University, majoring in Hungarian language and history.
He graduated in directing from the Kyiv National I. K. Karpenko-Karyi Theatre, Cinema and Television University in 1992, and he taught acting at the institution from the 1990s until 1997.

In 1992, he was the founding director of the Gyula Illyés Hungarian National Theatre in Berehove, where he became artistic director in 1993, and today he is the main director of the theatre. He has been staging plays in Hungary since 1999. From 2004, he was the leading director of the Hungarian State Opera House for a year. From January 2006, he was the artistic director of the Csokonai Theatre in Debrecen, and from April 2007 until 2013, he was the appointed director of the institution. He has been the director of the Budapest National Theatre since 2013.

From 2011, he was an honorary university professor at the University of Kaposvár. He was the vice-rector of art between 2013 and 2020, and the head of the department of acting between 2012 and 2017. From 2020, he is the appointed rector of the Rippl-Rónai Faculty of Arts of Szent István University.
From August 1, 2020, he is the chairman of the board of the foundation that maintains the Budapest University of Theatre and Film Arts. He is married, the father of six children.

The Madách International Theatre Meeting (MITEM) was created in 2014 on his initiative. The number of his premieres registered in the Theatre Repository: 90.

Inviting Theater
Third Theatre of Pécs