Third floor, foyer

An exhibition by Zsolt Szász, the damaturge of the National Theatre of Hungary and the Editor in Chief of the Szcenárium (the artistic periodical, issued by the theatre). As a puppeteer – rewarded with the Blattner Award –, he began his career in 1978, in the age of 19, at the Vojtina Puppet Theatre. He had been working there for ten years as a designer, director, actor and workshop manager. In 1994, he founded the independent Hattyúdal (Swan Song) Theatre, and during the last four decades, he also created performances of epoch-making significance in preeminent Hungarian puppet theatres. The best of the 60 year-old puppeteer’s oeuvre will be exhibited on the second and third floors of the National Theatre’s public area. Besides his about seventy puppets and masks, this unique work of its kind will be richly represented by visual images as well.

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First floor and second floor lobby

Theatre is our common passion

What else? It is this passion that has given birth to, sustained and grown the Madách International Theatre Meeting since 2014 – more than forty countries, one hundred and twenty performances and thousands of poignant, amusing and moving moments. They happened and, like dreams, faded away. For “theatre is the place of dreams” – as Bertolt Brecht put it. The art of the theatre is ephemeral, like the lives of mayflies. In the photographs, these theatrical dreamscapes are somehow expanded – if not made eternal – into timelessness.

Zsolt Eöri Szabó (64) is a member of the artistic crew of the National Theatre, the editor and photographer of the theatre’s website. Previously, he was an editor-reporter and presenter at the Hungarian Radio (1979) and Hungarian Television (in the show ABLAK) until 2001. His photographs have appeared in magazines, books, international and national exhibitions. The current exhibition consists of his selection of images taken during the Madách International Theatre Meetings.

(11 September 2021)