11. Madách International Theatre Meeting

Roles, performances, faces - moments captured from the decades of Berehove Theatre. Photographs by Béla Ilovszky and Zsolt Szabó Eöri.

The Madách International Theatre Meeting, held in the framework of the 10th International Theatre Olympics, once again provided many exciting lessons. It raised three major themes: the war, humankind’s ecological responsibility and the dialogue between East and West in the language of theatre – and sometimes these themes overlapped.

By addressing theatre students from eleven countries with our Madách project, it was settled on my part that I would stage The Tragedy as a drama of humanity. After all, these students, from Cairo to Toronto, from Tbilisi to Liverpool, represent humanity, the entirety of our modern world.

Screenings, discussions, audience meetings, an exhibition - events, memories, past and present issues from three decades of Berehove Theatre. Entrance to the screenings and discussions is free of charge.

The Madách Project was a special event at the 10th Theatre Olympics, with the participation of student actors from 11 countries. Over 200 students from Poland, Egypt, Greece, Italy, Turkey, Romania, the UK, France, Georgia, Canada and Hungary presented their home-produced scenes and then, under the direction of Attila Vidnyánszky, they put together a Tragedy performance presented in an industrial hall in Budapest’s Hajógyári sziget (Shipyard Island). MITEM’s Tragedy Marathon features a short making-of documentary alongside a recording of the monumental seven-hour multilingual performance. 

To mark the bicentenary of Imre Madách's birth and the 140th anniversary of the theatre premiere of The Tragedy of Man, the magazine Országút invited six leading contemporary artists to illustrate a scene from the play.

Synergy World Theatre Festival was founded in 2017 in Novi Sad, Serbia, with the aim of providing a platform for theatres and companies that work across linguistic and cultural borders. Since its inception, the festival has been organised by the Novi Sad Theatre/Novosadsko Pozorište with the support of the city, under the leadership of Valentin Venczel, manager of the Hungarian-language theatre from 2013 to 2023. The Festival is based in Novi Sad, but in 2023, the year of the Hungarian Theatre Olympics, it came to the National Theatre in Budapest as a participant of the 10th Madách International Theatre Meeting, MITEM.

10 countries • 10 companies • 21 productions

On the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Imre Madách, at the same timeframe with the Theatre Olympics, the University of Theatre and Film Arts is organising the Madách Project, a series of events in the framework of which 'The Tragedy of Man' directed by Attila Vidnyánszky will be staged again with the participation of foreign and Hungarian theatre students. 

According to the National Theatre of Hungary, the Chorus Repertory Theatre of India will not be able to hold its guest performances rescheduled from the original date to 6-7 June, and has therefore been cancelled from the MITEM programme. The floods in the Manipur region did not spare the Chorus Repertory Theatre’s headquarters, and the company was unable to make arrangements for its European tour in time. Tickets can be redeemed in person at the box office of the National Theatre of Hungary until 16 June. Online tickets buyers will be refunded within a few days.