T h e...N A T I O N A L...D R A M A...A N D...T H E A T R E...S E L E C T I O N
Sterijino Pozorje Festival
Novi Sad
May 26th - June 4th 2007

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MONDAY - MAY 28th 2007
Grand Stage, Serbian National Theatre
19:30

Géza Csáth

EMMA

Hungarian language drama of the National Theatre - Népszínház, Subotica

Dramatization, director
PÉTER FEKETE

Literary consultant
ZOLTÁN DÉVAVÁRI

Dramaturgy
ROZÁLIA BRESTYÁNSZKI-BOROS

Set design
Blek Point Art & PÉTER HORGAS

Costume design
VIKTÓRIA KRESZÁNKÓ

Choreographer
DÉNES DÖBEREI

Assistant director
ATTILA SZÖKE

Premiere: March 19th 2006
Duration: 2 h / one interval

Ádám
ERVIN PÁLFI
Ema / Olga
HERMINA G. ERDÉLYI
Géza Csáth
PETÉR FERENC
Zöldi
ZOLTÁN MEZEI
Mariska
PETRONELLA KÖRMÖCI
Frigyes
ATTILA SZÖKE
Gábor Decsy
CSABA RALBOVSZKI
Jausz
BÉLA KÁLLÓ
Irma
SUZANA VUKOVIC
Governess Eszter
NATÁLIA VICEI
Teacher Szladek
ATTILA MESS
Father
ÁRPÁD CSERNIK
Music
Ensemble Borago
vocal, flute - Anita Hornai ; vocal, piano - Zsuzsi Warnus ;
vocal, tuba - Gábor Bizsák ; violin - Félix Lajkó

T H E A T R E......

 
The NATIONAL THEATRE – NÉPSZÍNHÁZ, SUBOTICA
The history of theatrical life in Subotica takes us back to 18th century when, as records show, there were two forms of theatrical performances: plays performed at schools and those prepared by German professional actors who maintained their leading position until the appearance of Hungarian theatre. In 1874 Hungarian actors left Subotica getting replaced by actors from the Serbian National Theatre in Novi Sad. The theatre in Subotica was very popular and this town constantly worked on the project of building a house worthy of Thalia. In 1853 the Rogina bara (swamp) was reclaimed (nowadays Korzo) and the Town Assembly engaged Master Skultéti to build the theatre building on this site. The versatile theatrical artist György Telepi undertook to do the interior. The new building emerged in a year, but its Corinthian Columns were not inscribed with the name of the theatre but the Pest Hotel, because the town fathers considered it more profitable. In 1904 came a reconstruction: the stage was widened, a balcony was constructed and the name of the City Theatre was written on the edifice. In the spring of 1915 the theatre was destroyed in a fire. The Pest Hotel escaped the same destiny, and the small theatre hall was left untouched. In 1924 the restructuring of the theatre building lost in the fire commenced. The new theatre house was inaugurated in 1927 with the opera Imperial Bride by Rimsky Korsakov performed by the National Theatre from Belgrade. In autumn 1945 the Subotica theatre building became permanent home to professional troupes. After over 90 years the town finally got its permanent company and its theatre. On 19th September 1945 the Presidency of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina decided to establish its two ensembles: the Croatian National Theatre and the Hungarian National Theatre. It was made official on 28th October 1945 by Mirko Bogovic’s play Matija Gubec directed by Branko Spoljar, while the newly founded Hungarian Theatre opened with its first premiere – Béla Balazs’s The Dance of Witches directed by Laszlo Pataki on 29th October 1945. By the decision of the Executive Board of AP Vojvodina, on 1st January 1951 the two companies merged into one single company of the National Theatre-Népszínház. In autumn 1952 the music ensemble grew into the Opera only to be closed by the end of the season 1953/54. This period in the theatre’s history is known as its “Golden Age”. Subotica had as much as three stages, and in the summer of 1952 it got a rotating stage as well. One of the stages was the Summer Stage at Lake Palic. Subotica became a true festival town. Following the 1958 statute of the theatre the Croatian Drama became the Drama in Serbo-Croatian Language, while Hungarian Drama became the Drama in Hungarian Language. In 1970 the project of the theatre building restructuring was completed, but in 1974 the inspectors decided to close it because the installations in the building were too old. In the following year, after the reconstruction, the theatre started operating in its original house once again. In 1985 it was concluded that the foundations of the building were unstable and that it had to be demolished so the Council for Reconstruction was established. Ljubisa Ristic came to the theatre in the following year, where he stayed for the next ten years, during which time Ristic together with Nada Kokotovic gathered a great group of directors and performers from many centres in Yugoslavia. The Dramas were cancelled and a single artistic ensemble with a concept of an unconventional theatrical expression was formed instead.
The National Theatre Népszínház became traditional once again in 1995. When SO Subotica decided it would financially participate in the theatre building restructuring in 1997, this initiated the process of reaching a decision on the destiny of the building. A competition for designing the new building was announced and the company YUSTAT from Belgrade won the contract, but the financing slowed down due to the bombing. After the rehabilitation the roof above the main staircase fell down, so from March to October 2002, having no place of their own, the ensemble had their plays as guests on different stages. In October 2002 the staircase restructuring was completed and the season opened on the home stage. In 2003, the project of adaptation, restructuring and construction of the theatre building was finally finished and the spring of 2007 has been set as the date for commencement of the works. Both Dramas of the Subotica Theatre will perform on the Jadran Stage until the new building is finished.

P E R F O R M A N C E......

 
SYNOPSIS
The play is based on the novel ‘Little Emma’, written by a famous writer Géza Csáth from Subotica, in which he describes the lives of a group of children at the turn of 20th century. They have fun, they play and learn, and we also get to see the scenes from their family lives. Based on a true story from the past, which their father told them, the children start playing the game of hanging. At the beginning it’s just a naive game, but as the time passes it becomes more and more morbid. Emma, who at times resembles Géza Csáth’s wife when she was younger, is the heroine of the story. She is a wonderful girl, liked by everyone in the group. Adam, a boy from the same group (alter ego of Géza Csáth when he was younger), is very much in love with her. Besides these two, in the play we find the characters from other novels by Géza Csáth: Zöldi, who is a bit older than the others and is the strongest member of the group; Jausz, a spoilt child, who becomes a member of the group later on and has to pay the price for that; Decsy, Adam’s cousin, who defends him from Zöldi’s attacks; Sentei, who is the weakest pupil in his class. Besides Emma, there is Mariska, who is very much in love with Zöldi, as well as Irma, deaf and dumb sister of Adam and Decsy. In the scenes taking place at school we can see the Teacher as well, who severely punishes his pupils for mischievous behaviour.

Act 1
In the first scene we see Géza Csáth, in a narcotic delirium, bringing the characters from his novella to life. After a reviving dance he withdraws to the side where he stays observing the events created y his imagination. We can see Adam reading about his experiences concerning Emma. After that we see a classroom, pupils slowly coming to the stage, Zöldi is mocking poor Jausz, taking his brand new knife away from him. The teacher comes in. The pupils recite a poem one by one, the poem Sentei hasn’t learned, of course. He is punished ... The author Csáth appears for a few moments, indulging in his passion... Only for a few seconds we see Adam continuing his rendezvous with little Emma in his fantasy... A family scene: Father, governess and the children. After supper, on the children’s request, Father gives them a detailed description of a hanging he has seen. Children repeat his words for themselves. We see the writer for a few moments, indulging in his passion again... Emma, i.e. his wife Olga, is there... Another classroom scene. After a music lesson Zöldi comes in late for school. The teacher wants to punish him too... The cruel punishment merges with the suffering of the author himself... Csáth’s moments with Emma/Olga, who refuses to give in to his passion.

Act 2
Father prepares to go out. The governess helps him... The children secretly observe their silent romance ... In the meantime he tells a story of a man who hanged himself... He notices the children who get in asking him to tell them another story about hanging ... Father leaves and the children stay alone with the governess. She tells them about a man who killed his wife in a fit of jealous rage as a bedtime story. The children ask her to describe every detail of the very act of killing. Moments of Csáth and Adam. They read about experiences with Emma from a diary. A scene from the attic gradually emerges before our eyes. They gather together in secret and play a game following the strict protocol they invented themselves. They ritually initiate Jausz in the company. In the silence which follows, somebody suggests playing hanging. They prepare everything for hanging, they cast the roles, but they don’t have a prisoner for executing. Deaf-mute Irma offers to find a rabbit to hang. We witness the animal hanging. In his diary Adam remembers the frequent and brutal incidents of hanging different animals. However, his fantasy always wonders back to little Emma he adores. We see a marvelous vision by Adam, who is desperately trying to get closer to unreachable Emma. The children are bored in the attic: they’ve run out of prisoners to hang. Emma appears in the attic for the first time...

REPORT OF ARTISTIC DIRECTOR......
AND SELECTOR
......

 
Starting from the text by a well-known Hungarian author from Subotica from the early 20th century, Csáth Géza, which speaks of the destiny of children confronted with the challenges of the adult world, Fekete Péter constructs a very exciting, oniric, poetic and dark drama. Its dramaturgy is based upon a complex transformation of Géza Csáth’s prose motifs and the dramatic fate of the author himself (he was a morphine user and committed suicide), while its stage language is extremely minimalist and made highly aesthetical, based on a multipurpose use of space, metaphoric and poetical stage images and the excellent cast’s highly emotional performance.
Ivan MEDENICA

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GÉZA CSÁTH (1887-1919)
He was born in Subotica in 1887. His real name was József Brenner, and Dezső Kosztolányi and Dezső Jász were his cousins. He was a high school pupil in Subotica from 1896 to 1904. From 1901 he published music reviews and brief reports in the "Bácskai Hírlap” newspaper.
In 1904 he sent his short story "Furnace" to writer Sándor Bródy, who said only the best things about the young author. Since he didn't enter the Music Academy in Budapest, he enrolled in the faculty of medicine. From 1908 the “Nyugat” magazine regularly published his short stories and music reviews. He started working at the Moravcsik clinic as a neurologist. Because of one wrong diagnosis and some existential fears he started taking morphine, and in spite of trying to overcome his addiction, he kept taking more and more. From the middle 1910, he was a spa doctor in the Ótatárfüred sanitarium, where he met Olga Jónás, whom he married in 1913.
From 1911 to 1913, in the summer, he was a spa doctor in Stósz, Stubnyafürdő and Palics. From 1914 to 1915 he was a local doctor in Élőpatak, but in the meantime had to serve the army. In 1914 and 1915 he fought on the Serbian and then Russian front and was later a military doctor in Trencsén and Budapest. Because of his poor physical and mental health he was released from the army for a year. From the fall of 1915 he was a doctor in Földes.
From 1917 he wasn't obliged to be in the army anymore, and worked as a local doctor in Regőce. His wife Olga gave birth to their daughter in 1918. In January 1918 he had a nervous breakdown, and had therapy in the mental hospital in Baja. He shot his wife, attended suicide, but was saved and returned to hospital. He was transferred to a hospital in Subotica, but soon afterwards he ran away. Serbian soldiers in a demarcation line near Kelebia arrested him. While he was in custody, he poisoned himself.

A U T H O R ...

 
 
From 1906 he was a music critic in the "Budapesti Napló" newspaper, and his short stories were published on the covers. His texts from that period were marked with naturalism and symbolism, and he stopped with anecdotal traditions. The world of his childhood, in comparison with all the things he wrote, was his inspiration. Heroes of his short stories weren't led by goals. Their acts were motivated by their instincts, sublime wishes and passion. He used naturalism in short stories for which he found inspiration in the days of his studies, "Trepov on the Autopsy Table", "Father and Son". Those were the beginnings of the realistic stream of his opus, which then continued in his texts for theatre. Biological knowledge affected the young Csáth equally and simultaneously. It was Darwinism on one side, and symbolistic mysteries of life on the other. They showed up in his musical composition and language, ("In an Unknown House"), ("Spring Ouverture”). Between these extreme influences, the middle one is psychoanalysis itself. According to Csáth, personality has many layers, so called complexes. Complexes together make one whole. If one of the complexes is behind the others or is hurt, others spread and take its place. A "healthy" and "deformed" developed personality, or from the medicinal aspect, a sane person and an insane person or a criminal, are different only in the relation of these complexes. The result of his literary and medical work was one publication, published under his family name. It is the diary of one mentally ill woman accompanied by a full scientific apparatus. "Psychic Mechanism of Mental Illnesses" (1912). Dream and reality were entangled there, as well as rational and irrational (“A Frog”, “A Surgeon”, “A Murder”), were only at the level of artistic experiments, foreplay of succession. The turn towards succession in the literary work of Géza Csáth happened in 1907 and 1908, and that was also the beginning of his short literary career, which ended in 1912. The turn was firstly announced by his short story "Redhead Esti", from 1908, which was an original "facing with his ego from his childhood, which is to say, the formulation of the cathartic sensation of meeting reality." That year was also the key for understanding Csáth’s views on life and art. A man's life with existentialism is one whole, and complete only with his world of fantasies. That's why his heroes went back to the theatres of their childhood so often, as it was some complete “Magician's Garden”, “Magician's Death”, “An Afternoon Dream”, or in the world of dreams “Joseph of Egypt”. Similar to the views of Endre Ady, the world in their eyes was damaged, lame, broken into pieces, a fragmentized reality which, already in early childhood, made the healthy development of personality impossible. Not only are his adult heroes bloodthirsty (“A Murder”) - his innocent children-heroes are also motivated by sadistic instincts and ready to murder “Matricide”, “Little Emma”.

"Judging by the facts, Csáth’s most perfect short story was “Matricide”, in 1908. Using only two or three words, he presented psychological, social and above all mythological motivation that could explain the title of the short story, of a hideous crime, because he could explain it on a psychological plain, based on his own theoretical convictions. That is why the brothers Witman, who were left without their father at an early age, at the beginning at their overly exposed sexual complex, turned to murder in their sadistic phase of sexual development. This is true according to Freud too. He could develop that story in the other direction too: Why did a widower, respected by all the tenants of the building, and who had a lover, neglected the education of her two sons, and for them became a worthless person that could be murdered without any moral fears. At last, he could have motivated the murder from the prostitute’s point of view. However, with cold elegance Csáth put all the motivation possibilities aside and put the murder of the mother as a foundational fact, as a consequence of deformed world order.” - (László SZÖRÉNYI)

His best short stories, aside from his well-done technique of managing time periods, characterize a very objective float of his stories as well as describing details and an emphasized wish for stylization. His two best collections of short stories, from his mature period are “Magician’s Garden” (1908) and “Judge and Other Stories” (1909). In his collection “Pastry Maker Schmith” (1912), and in his later short stories he returned to the traditional formal types of feuilletons. As far as it is known, he wrote eight plays, and one part of them is only in fragments. “Janika” (1911) is considered to be one of the best Hungarian middle-class dramas, where a narrow world and the hypocritical moral of village middle-class mentality are shown. That hypocritical, so-called moral people’s milieu is also shown in his play “Horváth” (1912). The story “A Tale from Our Village” (after 1912) is also placed in a similar situation. It is actually a dramatization of the short story “Judge”, with the author’s intention to give it an opera libretto form. The theatre text “An Ashy Wednesday” is an exception from this stream, which was, according to the author’s first intentions, supposed to be a puppet play, and with this bizarre idea, he was actually the pioneer of the Hungarian drama of the absurd.

“In each of Csáth’s plays, we can find something modern, something that talks to us. “Janika” stands out in that sense, not only with its conscience, but also by showing the author’s sovereign power of creating situations. “Horváth” surprised everyone with its Tolstoyan consistency. In “The Story from Our Village”, Csáth, as he was a modern scene author, built a structure of his piece by developing another subject. Csáth was undoubtedly a great modernist of the last century. “You can’t trick life” - is one of the replies from “An Ashy Wednesday”, and it characterizes this author in the best possible way. There is deep consciousness about the ultimate value of life, but there is also skepticism of the doctor-author, and a sigh from a scene author: a very neat conscience about his own possibilities” (Mihály SZAJBÉLY)

Csáth, together with Emil Havas and Artúr Munk wrote one novel: ”Flying Vučidol”, in 1906.
His literary and music reviews, and texts about art in general, witness the modern culture, broad education and excellent analytic capabilities of the author. He was one of the first who discovered the importance of the “Anthology of Tomorrow” (1908); his analyses of the literary piece of Kálmán Mikszáth, 1910 and of Mór Jókai, 1917. As a music critic his attention was drawn to Bartók and Kodály in his early days, and his essays about Puccini, 1910, and Wagner ”Portraits of Composers” (1911) are very significant.
”In his heart he hid sharpened knives”- Kosztolányi wrote about him.
(taken from http://enciklopedia.fazekas.hu/)

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PÉTER FEKETE
Born in Hungary in 1963,
Péter Fekete is now equally at home in Britain. Following studies in education in Szombathely in Hungary and in circus arts at the Zauberschule in Munich, he graduated as an ADC stage director from the Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff. He worked for the Welsh College and with the British-Hungarian intergovernmental project on English language drama in Hungarian higher education. He was also director of international relations and education at the new National Theatre in Budapest ,but as an artist he has remained freelance director, directing for the stage in several leading theatres, including Hungary’s international theatre, Merlin. He also directed their production of Spinach’n Chips in the New End Theatre last year.

Major works:
Csáth: Kicsi Emma, Barker: Judith, Levin: Deathtrap, Selmeczi-Czakó: Disznójáték - Pigs, Cervantes: Don Quijote, Shaffer: The Private Ear, Greene: Travels with My Aunt, Barker: The Possibilities, Pinter: Betrayal, Albee: Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Friendship: The Legend of King Arthur and Merlin, Hampton: Treats, T. Williams: The Glass Managerie, Pinter: The Lover, Harrower: Knives in Hens, Egressy: Spinach’n Chips ...

D I R E C T O R ...

 
 
Csáth’s magical world on the Subotica stage
About ten years ago, this novella written by Csáth was staged in Great Britain, also directed by Péter Fekete. The successful play in English was performed before audiences in Budapest, but this is the first staging of the drama in Hungarian.
However, the play made in Subotica will be completely different, because director Péter Fekete had an opportunity to read a lot of Csáth’s unpublished letters and fragments from his original journals in preparation of his premiere in Subotica. As the director said he walked the streets Géza Csáth used to walk, stealing looks above the gates and into the backyards, trying to travel back in time to the moments when Géza Csáth lived here. Therefore the play will be full of scents typical of Subotica.
– A spectator of this show will be able to see a rounded story. But the play will have another, additional layer: we are going to incorporate into it some characters and situations taken from some other works by Csáth. And on another level we intend to explore what happens as the consequence of a situation where teacher doesn’t know how to treat children appropriately, who doesn’t know how to become their role model, what it means to grow up without a mother or a father, and if father is there physically, what it means when he doesn’t know how to build a proper relationship with his child; to try and see where all this can lead – says director Péter Fekete. – On the third level we will try to understand that world of Géza Csáth which is the subject of expert studies, and which appears here, before the audience as something curious, but inexplicable.
– His life reveals some new situations and we discover the connection and relationship between the character of little Emma and Géza Csáth’s wife.
A year and a half ago, during the preparation of the play Knives in Hens, the director and the Hungarian ensemble of the National Theatre in Subotica worked together to mutual satisfaction, and the idea of staging this Csáth’s novel was born then.
Dramaturge Rozália Brestyánszki-Boros adapted and translated the text from English into Hungarian. Péter Fekete is grateful to Zoltán Dévavári, a well-known researcher of Géza Csáth’s opus from Subotica, who made his entire private collection available to the director. Similarly, the people from the Subotica City Library offered him a number of photographs and printed material. Music composed in the style of Bartok will be performed by Lajkó Félix because – as the director says – he is the only one who is capable of investing himself into the story in the true Csáthian way. Stage movement of this production is the work of Dénes Döberei, born in Horgos, who is a member of theJózsef Nagy’s ensemble. The set is designed by Péter Horgas from Budapest and the costumes by Viktória Kreszankófrom Subotica.
Peter Fekete has already been the guest of the theatre in Subotica and knows the situation in the theatre.
– We all know very well that Hungarian theatres in diaspora cope with the problems of finances. Artistic results of the Hungarian ensemble of the National Theatre in Subotica show a constant rising curve. Just remember how the Lift for Food was received two years ago, and the same is proved by the awards this ensemble received for Murlin Murlo. Despite technical and financial problems, this theatre’s work is a role model and therefore the theatrical community expects a lot from the troupe from Subotica - says Péter Fekete.
M. K. (Magyar Szó, 11-12th February 2006)

R E V I E W S......

 
 
Written in naturalistic style, text by Géza Csáth is a story saturated with strong autobiographical elements which speaks of what are the possible consequences of physical and “spiritual terror” children, or more generally human beings, are subjected to. It’s a story about him, about his wife Olga and her death, ultimately showing us how bleak was the world as the author saw it. The story depicts children who are forced to personally experience violence and the basic corruption of the society in their closest environment – in their school and family. These children, by torturing animals and ‘performing’ brutal stories, finally arrive at a tragedy of Emma’s death.
The director of the play, Péter Fekete, used to work as an illusionist – which can only come useful in theatrical art today, considering that scene has become a predominant constitutional segment of a play. With the help of set designer Péter Horgas, the director stages simple but effective scenes, plays with the space, making it both beautiful and imaginative. And he succeeds in that. The spectators sit in several rows facing each other on both sides of the stage, which is spread wide and long as a runway between them, changing from a classroom in a school in one moment, becoming a bedroom in another, turning into an attic with ladders in just a few seconds. The fast changes resemble magician’s tricks, and before the eyes of the audience a dining room becomes an attic. Péter Fekete creates a seductive world of dreams. Keeping some of the scenes longer, he slowly lulls the audience taking them further away from reality. The music only heightens and adds to the magic atmosphere initiated by the stage set developing it even further. The music of the ensemble Baroko, built upon baroque motifs, is performed byLajkó Félix.
The actress in the role of Emma (Hermina G. Erdélyi) is a “true” Emma. We could read the end of the story from the expression on her face from the very beginning of the play – naïve, innocent. The frightened children are trying to save their cheerfulness and life will through playing games. The narrator of the play appears as if possessed by the spirit of Géza Csáth himself, while Olga, the author’s wife, can be observed in the character of little Emma. The two of them are in some kind of collusion in the play as well. Leaving from time to time the line of the story, they steer the other protagonists. As if performing their own lives once again through them. Undoubtedly thanks to directing skills of Péter Fekete, because the narrator occasionally, as if a sorcerer, takes a walk among the protagonists inconspicuously, and the audience never knows when and where he will appear next. Dramaturge Rozália Brestyánszki-Boros used some previously unknown documents in reaching the final form of the text. This original material is of a great help in understanding the entire opus of Géza Csáth.

Eszter SÁFRÁNY

Emma and Olga?
In the play of the Hungarian ensemble of the National Theatre in Subotica, on the stage Jadran, people will have the opportunity to experience the cruel, tragic, depressive world of Géza Csáth.
Director Péter Fekete worked with the ensemble a year and a half ago on the play Knives in Hens. The ensemble’s manager Frigyes Kovács introduced him to writer Zoltán Dévavári in whose home the director had the chance to see and read Csáth’s original journals and letters. The idea for this play was born there and then. The framework of the play is Csáth’s novella ‘Little Emma’, but the play is enriched by motifs taken from his personal diaries, letters and other novels. Researching for the play, the director tried to find out if there is any connection between the character of little Emma, the heroine of the Csáth’s novel, and Olga, Csáth’s wife. Some of his letters which haven’t been published yet support this parallel.
Rozália Brestyánszki-Boros helped the director in writing the text of this play, which didn’t actually exist previously. Creativity of the cast is also fully expressed in shaping their own stage characters. It is especially important to say that this isn’t a team assembled for just one production, but a well-coordinated troupe used to working together. The director hopes that the “reform”, which dominates the entire world of theatre nowadays, won’t find fruitful soil here and that the theatrical workshops, such as this one in Subotica, will survive. The music for this play alone is a small miracle: the director saw the performance of a young talented singer Anita Hornai on Hungarian television, and later her ensemble took the offer to compose the music for this play to which Lajkó Félix “added” the “emotional pain” so typical of the world of Géza Csáth.
Katalin MIHÁLYI (Magyar Szó, 18–19th March 2006)
. The management preserves the right to change the schedule
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