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ENDRE MARTON: STUDENTS OF VIENNA, 1949
48
49
Cf. “We were nationalized on 15" July, 1949, and Antal Berczeller, Head of Department in
the Ministry of Culture, said that we should start rehearsing on 1*t August. ‘Good’, I replied,
‘but what?’ You can’t get an operetta off the nail like a play, you have to make it first. He
gave a typical answer: it didn’t matter if actors had to do wrist and knee exercises, just let
rehearsals begin on 1* August. Well, we got together and formed the Working Community of
the Operetta Theatre, which wrote the first play as a collective author. Many were outraged
and mentioned a leftist deviation, but it was born out of terrible historical compulsion...”
Ibid., 16.
Innocent Vincze, Semsei and Marton are mentioned in an interview with Margit Gaspar
(cf. Venczel: Virägkor, Part 1, 16.), who also added Katona’s name into the script written by
Tibor Banos (Bänos: A szinigazgato, 7.). Jenö Semsei was assigned to the Operetta Theatre by
the Theatre Department of the Ministry of Culture in 1949. Ferenc Katona, with two years
of practice at the Madach Theatre, was placed at the Operetta Theatre as a freshly graduated
director, but he did not stay long and did not receive a significant task. Endre Marton, who
made a name for himself in the Vig Theatre from 1945 to 1949 and became its principal
director at the age of 29, was placed at the National Theatre after nationalization, where
he played a decisive role until his death, even as a manager. His employment as director of
the opening performance of the nationalized Operetta Theatre was probably intended to
implement the “general directive” mentioned in a newspaper clipping taped into the 1949
commemorative album of the famous buffo, Röbert Ratonyi: “to cultivate the noble and
classical traditions of operetta in the field of realist acting”. Laszlé Sztics was married to
Margit Gaspar and became the principal dramaturg of the National Theatre led by Antal
Németh from 1935. Later he was dramaturg of the National Theatre of Miskolc and the
Opera House in Budapest. A comment by Margit Gáspár refers to his contribution to writing
Students of Vienna: "It is unspeakable what we laughed with Bandi Marton and my husband,
László Szűcs, at this kind of collective writing at night, but the play was put together in the
end." (Venczel: Virágkor, Part 1, 17.)
One of the two scripts in the archives of the Budapest Operetta Theatre is the promptbook
with the text of the production, and the other is presumably a version created by the
working community, containing more text than the promptbook. The promptbook is full
of red pencil swipes as well as black pencil rephrases and entries that record changes made
during rehearsals. Lyrics are taped into it on separate sheets, so they may have been made
separately. It even includes a reference to a song that has no trace either in the promptbook
or in the score. It is Torlai’s entrée (played by Kalman Latabar), whose title is also indicated:
“Cseberbél vederbe” (“Out of the frying pan and into the fire”). The fact that it was not
written in the end may have had a dramaturgical reason: the genre and the actor’s status
required it, but the situation did not. Torlai is fleeing from his persecutors, who appear soon:
the song would have cut the lively scene in half and retarded it in an unrealistic way. Some
minor cuts in the promptbook may have been results of the acting style. We can sense the
importance of the director, Endre Marton’s considerations and presume that the actors used
metacommunication to replace dropped passages.
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