Donáth Péter, Szegő György díszlet- és jelmeztervezők, É. Kiss Piroska szcenikus kiállítása (Fényes Adolf Terem, Budapest, 1984)

If we draw up the list of those artists and architects who had been working for stages, designing costumes and sets, more or less permanently in the years gone by - I think of Ilona Keserű, Gyula Pauer, László Najmányi, György Szegő, László Rajk, Ágnes Háy and El Kazovszkij -, we have to lay down the fact that these artists were led neither by existential consideration nor by the legalization of their established posts as artists. And it is not fortuity - out of some cases - that exactly the Kaposvár and the Szolnok Theatres have reckoned upon their talent and invention on the score of each artist’s former artistic individual world. Not that the two companies could be named avantgarde theatres - by which we mean quite another thing - but just from the above mentioned creators more than one have been indeed the partakers in the previous home theatrical attempts, however exactly these companies and stage managers at Kaposvár and Szolnok were those who have salvaged the most elements from the various avantgarde attempts to the usage of’’stone-theatres”. Or seen from the reverse of the medal: exactly these are the theatres which were able to relax the most, to make a rational change in the hardened theatrical structure, therefore to get rid of the diverse con­ventions of sight, too. New conceptions of space, new and unusual materials, particular manners of operating with light and colour came in sight on these stages, though they were not as extreme as, let’s say, the Russian avantgarde theatre at its days, or as the designs of Bauhaus but they were on the run in any case. They were suitable frames for tragedies and operettas alike. For there is ”no nonsense” at a provincial theatre. It should be impossible to play for only those in the know even at Kaposvár. The first nights - in all genres! - followed deliberately one after the other. The designers had to find practi­cal solutions in all instances in order to built up and realize their dreams under the circumstances of given technical staff, triffle money and the pressure of time. At Kaposvár everything came together: manager, actor, designer and technician have been working not at the expense of the other but they were linked together by the interest in the common cause, the production. Gyula Pauer was the one who had been designing for this ’’stone-theatre” in the seventies, then Ilona Keserű was noted in the playbills throughout a season, for long years now Péter Donáth and György Szegő are the designers and besides them Piroska É. Kiss is the scenist at Kaposvár. Pauer, Donáth, Szegő: there is no similarity among them neither in habitude nor in the manners of solution (merely all three of them have always brought forward fresh ideas for every performance throughout seasons). It could be forced to speak of whatever sort of’’visual style of Kaposvár”. However, composing the common they have in their designing activities we get a commonplace: they have created genuine scenes for good performances. One can speak a lot about certain plays, certain sets and costumes. The memory of the destructive desolateness of Szegő’s ’’Death of Marat” is still green in my mind, just like the symbolic, many interpretated spaces of’’Purple Island” and ’’Heavy Barbara”, or the peculiar, sensual playfulness of Donáth’s ’’Don Juan”, the all-knowing carpet of’’Wedding” and the visual representation of social conditions of’’Relatives”. However, I can tell comprehensively nothing about these designs beyond the fact they were good and alive. Or maybe yes? György Szegő was ’’primarily” an architect. Still he belongs to those architects who have far too strong conceptions on the function of architecture - and too contrary to norm -, it is the reason they are not willing to accept the standardized practice of a planning office where, after a long procedure, the output generally looks not like the design (certainly, I do no think of the drawn design but the dreamed one). Making compromises he favours to accept personally, for he wants to see what turns into what, not entrusting all these to the official machinery. It could lead Szegő to this parti­cular architectural ground, to the building of stage. No doubt, in the theatre everything is transitory, to be demolished (where not?), that’s all very well but exactly the stage is the spot where one can easily cross the line of demarcation bet­ween reality and surrealism, the incredible might become the fact, what the house-builder does not dare even to imagine. And something else: Szegő’s generation, with one accord, has been fed up with ’’modernism” which was deformed industrialized architecture. This generation, even though by means of eclectisism, wanted to rid themselves of the dogmatic, functionalist principles which were curable by no means any more. (This kind of showdown is absolutely impossible in an office.) All around the world this process of showdown is usually named, over-significated, post-modern. And on this basis Szegő’s theatre might be safely named a post-modern theatre for it builds itself from quotations, it has metafunc­tionality and searches for wonder. Péter Donáth has started as a painter, he displayed at every important exhibition together with avantgarde artists arising at the turn of the sixties-seventies. He has created wonderful pictures in the genres of Minimal Art and brush­­work, however he soon got bored of it Certainly, not of art but of the lack of comprehension they shared. Though they wanted nothing else than up-to-date art in Hungary, too. He happened to get to Kaposvár and has got stuck that town because he was comprehended there and could realize the majority of his ideas. He has designed individual spaces, created monumental surfaces which had rich interpretations for the actors and the spectators alike during the performance. He projected his sensitivity upon these things in order to make the others speak. Let’s call this process, if we like,, ’’new sensibility” though it has been also realized long before this tendency arose in Hungary. András Bán

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