Dievoushka

The soldiers of the 8th Kinizsi Pál bicycle infantry are watching the sunrise. A new day is beginning. The 20th of April, 1942, Érsekújvár, flag raising. According to the war orders, the regiment will entrain tomorrow for Galánta, then they’ll start off to the River Don in Russia. Captain Halász, lieutenant Kovács, and privates Mikó and Nyíri are spending their last night with their loved ones. But, as a surprise to all, the colonel’s wife is hosting a farewell ball where presence is voluntarily mandatory. Jewish labor serviceman Ármin Heinz serves the champaigne, the lady artist’s performance is elemental, the wives are waiting for their last night together with their men. The champaign is running thin, the soldiers are dancing, the women are impatient, some record appears, then later a syringe, and a few people’s lives change forever…

In his musical play Dievoushka, playwright / director Béla Pintér treats one of Hungarian history’s most dramatic moments with his usual humour and irony. He believes that interpreting history is a task for artists too, so he feels that it’s his mission to venture into the most sensitive areas of our natoinal past. In their musical play, Béla Pintér and Benedek Darvas guide us through this story from the middle of WW2 with rich humour and bitter clairvoyance. The musical quotes and operetta pieces make good neighbours with Puccini or Wagner’s opera motifs, Hungarian military marches and revisionist songs.

MÁTÉ HEGYMEGI

Máté Hegymegi is a Junior Prima Award winner Hungarian actor, theatre director, coreographer, dancer. He graduated in 2014 from the theatre academy’s physical theatre coreographer-director class in Budapest. As a novice, he trule exploded into the Hungarian theatrical consciousness.

One of his most exciting works to date was a Peer Gynt in 2017 at the Budapesti Stúdió K Színház (Studio K Theatre of Budapest), a five hours long itinerant performance traveling by bus; certain scenes happen in a system of cellars, others, in a church, so it was a huge project. László Bocsárdi, the Reflex Festival’s manager invited it to the 2018 Reflex4 but, due to objective reasons, the show could not make it to Sfântu Gheorghe.

After the Barbárok (Barbarians – 2018/2019) and Jógyerekek képeskönyve (Good Kids’ Picture Book – 2021/2022), Gyévuska is Hegymegi’s third time directing at the Tamási Áron Theatre.

TAMÁSI ÁRON THEATRE

The Sfântu Gheorghe theatre as a permanent cultural establishment was founded in 1948. Due to cultural-political events, its name was changed several times during the first few decades of its existence, then in 1992, it took Áron Tamási’s name. Today it still functions as the Tamási Áron Theatre, and is funded by the Council of Sfântu Gheorghe County Town.

The struggles of the first 50 years went in several directions: establishing the institution’s artistic reputation, forming a team out of the actors hired by the theatre and coming from various levels of training-, and acting styles, taking up the cause of the Hungarian minority, bringing up a core audience that justifies the existence and further funding of the institution.

In 1995, the theatre hired László Bocsárdi and some of the actors from his exprimental theatrical laboratory in Gheorgheni; this brought a radical change in approach. Since then, the company’s main goal is to represent the values of contemporary theatre, and this made the now 75 years old Tamási Áron Theatre into one of the most significant and reputable institutions of the Hungarian and Romanian theatrical profession.

CAST

Captain Halász: Kolcsár József

Second lieutenant Kovács: Kónya-Ütő Bence

Colonel Felkay: Pálffy Tibor

Gizella, Felkay’s wife: Gajzágó Zsuzsa

Zsuzsanna, the colonel’s daughter: Korodi Janka

German general Von Ziege: Szalma Hajnalka

Jewish forced laborer Heinz Ármin: Varsányi Szabolcs

Private Nyíri: Erdei Gábor

Aranka, Nyíri’s wife: Vass Zsuzsanna

Private Mikó: Mátray László

Jolán, Mikó’s wife: Fekete Mária

Tatiana, a partisan: Kovács Kati

Directed by: Hegymegi Máté

Dramaturge: Balázs Júlia

Set designer: Kupás Anna

Costume designer: Pető Kata

Sound design, musical leader, répétiteur: Urbán Kristóf

Light design: Baumgartner Sándor

Director’s assistant: Becsey-Imreh Noémi

Stage manager: Veres Bartha Edit

Prompter: Dobra Mária Magdolna

Conductor, répétiteur, piano: Szőcs Botond

Violinist: Ráduly Zsófia

Cello, double bass: Tóth-Györbíró Apor

Clarinet: Gábor Szabolcs

Trumpet: Szép Szilamér

Tuba: Csoma Attila

Duration of performance: 1 hour 30 minutes – without interval
language: HU
simultaneous translation: RO, EN

Premiere: 25th of February 2023