Spain finally decided to rise up (successful or not) but Hungarians still tolerate the “cultural war” imposed on them. And I cannot keep up anymore with the newer and newer anti-culture decisions of the government...
In the past months there were big protests against the shutdown of Tűzraktér, an important creative center (squat) in Budapest. For a moment strikes seemed fruitful. Trafó, the House of Contemporary Arts, Sirály, a neat theater/café/library and the evergreen Zöld Pardon are facing the same faith. Besides the baths, the biggest tourist attraction the Hungarian capital can offer is its alternative culture, manifesting in the flourishing ruin pubs, squats, backyard bars of Pest. Now they all struggle for their survival. 9 years of ruin pubs; a vivid, unyielding, young subculture – that may be soon extinct. Time to wake up!
A little background to the story: Fidesz, the biggest right wing party won the elections in 2010. One of their first provisions was to merge the Ministry of Culture into the Ministry of National Resources. There is one single under-secretary for the whole business we call culture. The budget got cut down by 16%, which leads many small theaters and art centers to close down. Most of them are not forced, as the above mentioned three institutions - but they are left with no other choice. The news of the media cencorship and the new "democratic" constitution made it all around the world. Well done product marketing, country image at its best!
Does National sex scandal ever wear off?!
(a recording with subtitles from 2010)
Róbert Alföldi, the director of the National Theater in Budapest has been fiercely charged by rightist politicians and media and now he is again close to getting removed. The casus belli is a press conference where a “well-informed” journalist criticized his works. Obviously not having seen the play (nor having read the original), she claimed to have discovered oral sex scenes in Madách’s The Tragedy of Man (see trailer). The directors ironic reaction “I wish you this type of oral sex for the rest of your life” triggered the accusation of “verbal rape”. I am not sure this exist as a legal category. ps: the play is definitely not for little kids, the drama is a compulsory reading in high school only.
These kind of news make me upset!!! I already fell in love with Róbert Alföldi (‘s voice) when he dubbed Noah Wyle, a.k.a. the cute Dr Carter from E.R. He knows the theater as an actor as well as a director and his works were shown from New York to Peking. The numerous awards also show his professional merits. His father was a socialist politician in the nineties. So what? And he is gay. But who cares? On the top of that, his plays sometimes bare nudity. OMG…
Hey, he was the one to bring finally a new buoyancy to the Hungarian National Theater. More tickets are sold than ever and it is not only pensioners and snobs anyomore who are interested in the highly praised classics. He has the courage to re-think instead of just copying clichés. Apart the new forms and gingered interpretations, he opens the doors to here virtually unknown genres, such as documentary theater. (He plans to stage a play on the Roma homicides, a daring topic on very recent history.)I wonder why certain Mr Delegates are so annoyed by him – I bet they don’t go to theater anyway!
We want him to stay - even past 2013! :)
