Elfriede Jelinek: Rod, Staff and Crook (Stecken, Stab und Stangl) - the first Hungarian production of a Jelinek-play

Hungarian translation commissioned by PanoDrama: Zoltán HALASI

With: Eszter  CSÁKÁNYI, Ágnes KASZÁS , Péter  SCHERER,  Marianna SZALAY

Set and costume design: Lili IZSÁK

Light design: Balázs CSONTOS

Directing assistant: Zsófia Tüű

Directed by: Róbert PEJÓ

Associate director and creative producer: Anna LENGYEL

Opening night: 21 April 2010 at Trafó, House of Contemporary Arts

Production Photos

The Nobel Laureate playwright’s first Hungarian premiere is produced by PanoDrama, an organisation devoted to producing new international plays in Hungary and new Hungarian drama abroad. Stecken, Stab und Stangl was voted Best Play of the year in 1996 and is Jelinek’s first theatre work directly inspired by social events. A racist’s bomb murdered four young Roma in the Austrian Burgenland in 1995, just because “they made the mistake of not putting on in time the looks and names of our acquaintances”. Jelinek stands against the crime committed by a racist, who is in the minority, but condemns even more the chorus of the hypocrite mourners of the majority, for thanks to them life goes on as if nothing had happened.

The award-winning Austrian-Hungarian film director, Robert Pejo’s first stage work draws on the theme of his film Dallas Pashamende, but its form is defined by the poetic text, barely divided into roles by Elfriede Jelinek. Beyond the - in Hungary - painfully timely subject matter PanoDrama’s production examines one of the most exciting phenomena of the Hungarian theatre, the appearance of young film directors on Hungarian stages from Mundruczó to Gigor.

In a theatre culture of rather few outstanding contemporary playwrights, Hungarian stages offer almost no reaction to some of the most crucial issues of today’s society. Even devised pieces tend to refrain from discussing the most burning issues - in a country famous for its political theatre during the Communist regime, when artists knew how to wink at the audience and spectators knew how to read the critical political thought between the Shakespearean lines.

Hunting Feast and B-Sector - with Jelinek against racism

“Life without memory is no life at all, just as an intelligence without the possibility of expression is not really an intelligence. Our memory is our coherence, our reason, our feeling, even our action. Without it, we are nothing.”

Luis Buñuel

I never liked political theatre. But what I would like even less is not talking about what’s going on in Hungary today. That we perform Chekhov and Feydeau as if murderous racism weren’t back on the streets and as if we weren’t forced to read slogans from the thirties on the walls and in some papers.

It is the whys and wherefores that we are searching for in these three days. But one thing is certain: Hungary never faced its fascist past. Just like Austria hasn’t until very recently. And since Hungarian dramatists don’t yet seem to want to write about what is happening around them, it is with Elfriede Jelinek that we try to find the cause and start discussing possible solutions.

Anna Lengyel, founder of PanoDrama

 Sponsored by: Kulturforum Österreich, OSI

Trailer Hunting Feast and B-Sector

Facing the Past, Dealing with the Present with Hope for the Future

8 March 2010 Monday

19h-0h30 Elfriede Jelinek: Sportsplay

Einar Schleef’s legendary performance recorded from the Vienna Burgtheater about the fascism of sports.

9  March 2010 Tuesday

Open University Lecture Series:  The Pathology of Hating What’s Different

20h 30 Eszter Fischer, psychologist: Enough of calling them Jews jolly names! - Let’s face our past and learn from it like Germany does

22h Elfriede Jelinek: Rechnitz

rehearsed reading directed by Csaba Polgár

with Andor Lukáts, Zsolt Máthé, Judit Pogány, Csilla Radnay, Kálmán Somody, Nóra Dia Takács

180 forced labour worker Jews were humiliated and slaughtered by Countess Battyhány and her company in 1944 at her castle in Rechnitz in the framework of a jolly hunting party.

The Hungarian countess was never tried for this monstrous deed, nor were her fellow-partiers. The mass grave still hasn’t been found.

10 March 2010 Wednesday

18h Roma/Non-Roma - where does the hatred come from? 

 ten-day workshop led by the TIE teacher and actor Yvette Feuer

The actor and TIE teacher Yvette Feuer has been working with  for almost a year including all age groups from small children to young adults. PanoDrama commissioned her to do a ten-day workshop with young Romanies from Barcs, Pécs, Hétes and Kaposvár  and young people of all colours from Budapest in the theme of hatred and discrimination against the Roma.

20h Elfriede Jelinek: Rod, Staff and Crook

rehearsed reading

Preceding the April premiere of PanoDrama we organize a workshop and present its result this evening about the four Hungarian Roma murdered by a racist in Burgenland.

With: Eszter Csákányi, Ágnes Kaszás, Péter Scherer, Marianna Szalay, Ádám Tompa

Workshop led by: Róbert Pejó and Anna Lengyel

Chaos by Mika Myllyaho- a workshop at the Nordwind Festival Berlin

Workshop Presentation im HAU 1st October 2009

coproduction with the Nordwind Festival 

workshop led by Martina Marti and Anna Lengyel

With: 

Judica Albrecht, Johanna Falckner, Katharina Hauck, Nicola Hecker, Simone Henn, Nicole Janze, Claudia Schwartz, Verena Specht-Ronique, Claudia Steiger

PanoDrama's concept of workshopping this wonderful dark comedy for three with nine women has proved a hit in Hungary, so now we have repeated the exercise with a group of German actresses in the framework of Nordwind Festival. The one-week workshop was co-led by the Swiss translator/director Martina Marti, who has been living and working in Finland for years and PanoDrama's founder Anna Lengyel. The most interesting lesson we learned was how similarly Finnish and Hungarian people seem to approach a Myllyaho-play, taking their cue from the situations and the characters which the Finnish playwright is so famous for, while the initial German approach seemed to regard these texts more as only that, wanting to work against the situation, but then quickly got the hang of the playwright's special sense of humour. 

The presentation was fairly full in the foyer of HAU1 and the audience enjoyed the evening clearly. 

Nordwind Festival focuses on Nordic theatre and as such has a Finnish focus in common with PanoDrama. A Smeds-evening shed light on the brilliant director and playwright Miss Lengyel worked with while still at Krétakör.

PanoDrama's Rehearsed Readings of New International Drama at the Annual Hungarian Theatre Festival POSzT

5-8 June 2009, Pécs

Continuing the tradition started last year PanoDrama produced three staged readings at the Annual Theatre Festival of the Best Productions in Pécs. Three packed houses in the House of Arts in this mediterranean Hungarian city were witness to the success of the genre, the plays and PanoDrama's initiative.

Lukas Bärfuss: The Test

translated by Attila Lőrinczy

After last year's success with The Bus, the most exciting Swiss playwright of our days was given another reading of a new play, whose translation was commissioned by PanoDrama and paid by the Goethe Institute. His earliest play, The Sexual Neuroses of Our Parents will be directed by the same director to open in early autumn as the first ever Bärfuss-premiere in Hungary.

with István Gyuricza, József Kelemen, Lia Pokorny, Szabolcs Thuróczy, Olga Varjú

Dramaturg/Producer: Anna Lengyel

Directed by Attila Réthly

Vasily Sigaryev: Guppi

translated by Annamária Radnai

One of Russia's most successful playwrights, who has had several exciting productions in Hungary inspired the translation, which was then co-financed by PanoDrama. The reading had a star cast and will be repeated in the autumn before the full production soon coming up.

with Imre Csuja, Anna Györgyi, Péter Scherer

Directed by Csaba Kiss

Alice Müller: Elvira and Petunia

This play, written in Hungarian by a Swiss playwright, won third place at PanoDrama's playwriting workshop this past winter. Alice Müller is an actor, playwright and director, who participated at the rehearsals of her short absurdist drama to get a first full reading at the festival. A discussion with the author followed.

with Eszter Bánfalvi, Tibor Mertz, Tamás Ujláb, Tibor Urbán, Marianna Szalay,

Directed by Böbe Bodor

The first year's program in 2008 included
The Bus by Lukas Bärfuss

translated by Ildikó Gáspár

with Ferenc Elek, Judit Pogány, Anna Szandtner, László Szula, Krisztina Urbanovits, Zoltán Varga

dramaturg/producer: Anna Lengyel
directed by Andor Lukáts

Mobile Horror by Juha Jokela

translated by Yvette Jankó-Szép

with Attila Magyar, Gábor Róbert, Ákos Orosz, Edit Vlahovics

Shadow of a Boy by Arne Lygre

translated by Éva Dobos

with Zsuzsa Horváth, Erzsébet Nagyváradi, Anna Orosz, András Pál, Tibor Szakács

Dramaturgy by Judit Garai

Directed by Gábor Czeizel

Book Launch of the anthology "New Finnish Plays" at the Örkény Theatre

PanoDrama's book launch of new Finnish plays 

at 4.30 pm on April 26th at the Örkény Theatre

supported by Finnagora 

The anthology appearing with the Polar Publishing House will be presented by PanoDrama with actors and involving Sirkku Peltola, one of the playwrights, featuring all four translators.

The book can be bought on the spot for 1800 HUF instead of the regular 2800 HUF.

Excerpts will be heard from Mika Myllyaho's Panic  in the rehearsed reading version presented by PanoDrama in March with actors of the National Theatre and directed by Roland Rába, as well as Leea Klemola's wonderful absurd, Kokkola that some might remember from the Krétakör reading three years ago, as well as Juha Jokela's Mobile Horror read at the National Theatre Festival POSzT last year in PanoDrama's three-piece series presenting new international drama and of two plays translated for the anthology: Sirkku Peltola's tragicomedy Finnhorse and Sofi Oksanen's Purging, which has been awarded the Finlandia and Runeberg Awards as a novel.

With:
Hámori Gabriella, Makranczi Zalán, Miklós Marcell, Pogány Judit, Szabó Kimmel Tamás and Szalay Marianna

Guest of honour:
Sirkku Peltola, author of The Finnhorse,

and Pap Éva,
founding director of Polar Publishing House and translator of Purging

and the translators Falk Nóra, Jankó-Szép Yvette and Kovács Ottília

Moderated by
Anna Lengyel

www.panodramaplays.blogspot.com

Chaos by Mika Myllyaho- a work-in-progress premiere

Chaos by Mika Myllyaho

a work in progress premiere of the K.V. Company and PanoDrama

March 16 4 pm at the National Theatre's Kaszás Attila Auditorium

Hungarian translation by Yvette Jankó-Szép

Actresses in all three roles of Emmi, Sofia and Julia:

Kata Bartsch, Böbe Bodor, Ágnes Kaszás, Alice Müller, Zsuzsa Száger, Marianna Szalay, Anna Szandtner, Nóra Dia Takács, Krisztina Urbanovits

Dramaturg and producer Anna Lengyel

Directed by Aleksis Meaney and the Company

Myllyaho's second and darker comedy, Chaos is written for three women, also in their thirties. 

Emmi and Julia are sisters, the younger Emmi a journalist, the older Julia a psychologist, their best friend Sofia is a schoolteacher.  Sofia's school is about to be closed, Julia is starting an affair with a schizophrenic patient, while Emmi - in the middle of a custody battle - is on antidepressants she gets from Julia and against better advice drinks on it. All are on the verge of breaking down one way or another and no wonder that they end up in jail one night. 

Rarely are plays written about women today by a man with such sensitivity, such rambunctious humour and wit. 

In this workshop, which was supposed to be led by the author Mika Myllyaho, who had to cancel on short notice due to health conditions, and was substituted by Aleksis Meaney, his long-time collaborator, following PanoDrama's concept nine outstanding Hungarian actresses in their thirties rehearsed the scenes of the Chaos for a week, at the end of which a ninety minute cross-section was shown to an enthusiastic audience at the National Theatre.

A full PanoDrama production of Chaos will follow in the spring of 2010 directed by Mika Myllyaho as the Hungarian premiere.

Panic by Mika Myllyaho - staged reading at the National Theatre

Mika Myllaho: Panic

staged reading

A PanoDrama production at the National Theatre 

March 11th 2009

Hungarian translation: Nóra Falk

Max         Marcell Miklós

Leo           Tamás Szabó Kimmel

Joni         Zalán Makranczi

Dramaturg and producer   Anna Lengyel

Directed by Roland Rába

Sponsored by Finnagora

One of the most exciting European countries for new drama today is Finland. The Helsinki Theatre Academy has a playwriting program which is responsible for bringing out the most gifted playwrights (and directors) with very different voices from Kristian Smeds through Juha Jokela to Mika Myllyaho on the male side, as well as some of the most brilliant women writers in modern theatre from Sirkku Peltola to Anna Krogerus. Laura Ruohonen, perhaps the most successful Finnish playwright internationally is now head of the playwriting programme.

Founding director of PanoDrama Anna Lengyel has had an intense working relationship with Finnish theatres and authors for over three years and promotes the plays of Nordic Drama Corner as their Hungarian partner.

A staged reading of PanoDrama with the Hungarian Dramaturgs' Guild at the Hungarian Theatre Festival POSzT in 2008 was Juha Jokela's Mobile Horror translated for that occasion. 

The spring of 2009 was devoted to the brilliant comic playwright and director Mika Myllyaho. The first event was a staged reading of Panic. A play about three men in their thirties at the verge of a nervous breakdown is a hilarious comedy of our days, one that runs with full houses of medium theatres all over Finland. 

The Hungarian reading was preceded by a more detailed rehearsal period stretching through a month, but only about three times a week three hours. The actors and the director were all involved in productions of the theatre and had rehearsals and performances in the mornings and the evenings.

The result was a half-staged production, which proved to be such a hit as no one expected it to be. The National Theatre is contemplating producing the full production next year. PanoDrama will in this case waive its right for a first production, but in case the National choses not to produce the show, PanoDrama will.