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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. + 27 +
