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On the basis of the play by Imre Madách

THE TRAGEDY OF MAN 14

THE TRAGEDY OF MAN

National Theatre, Budapest, Hungary

Director: Attila Vidnyánszky

3 hours 40 minutes with 1 breaks.

The great drama of humankind by Imre Madách—the playwright after whom our festival has been named—offers the hero of the play, Adam, an ever more comprehensive vision of the passage of time to which we have given the name “history,” from the very beginnings in the Garden of Eden to the distant future. Adam’s “guide,” the devil, who is always quite delighted by his own gift for irony, paints a picture of the future the foundation of which is doubt and the edifice of which is tragedy.

Lucifer mixes both knowledge and cautionary warnings in his attempts to persuade Adam not to accept God’s creation. But the Great Work, which indeed still turns, overcomes skepticism through the experience of continuous struggle, the struggle of both the audience and humanity of the future.

Attila Vidnyánszky, who is now bringing Imre Madách’s great drama to the stage in his fourth production of the work, offers the following characterization of the essence of the play: “This ‘poetic epic’ of humanity is a great spectacle which carries us through the ebbs and eddies of history, from Paradise into the future, but history as Lucifer would show it to us, i.e. as the ‘flitting phantoms of a dream.’ Thus, Madách himself gives the key to the staging: through the illogical logic of a dream, everything that Adam and Eve see and experience becomes livable, everything that brings them hope or leaves them disillusioned. We wish to tell, alongside all the moments of ‘hopelessness’ and the rise and fall of great ideas, of the love which binds two people, the bond between two people, out of which, whether as curse or redemption, our future is born.”

Eve

Eszter Ács

Adam

Sándor Berettyán

Further Actors

Stage designer

Bilozub Olekszandr

Costume designer

JDS (Jeremias Bianca)

Dramaturge

Ernő Verebes

Choreographer

Yvette Bozsik

Stage manager

Gábor Dobos

Krisztián Ködmen

Prompter

Anikó Sütő

Assistant director

Ákos Sándor Trimmel

Director

Attila Vidnyánszky

MS
Main Stage
Attila Vidnyánszky

Attila Vidnyánszky

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.

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