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A CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTION BECOMES A LASTING LESSON
of the tension caused by his returning his role. At the first rehearsal Bilicsi
announced that he would not play Jupiter, because he was deeply religious
and did not want to “say some twenty sentences that disrespect God and are
highly profane.”*°° Although scandal and punishment could be avoided,*”
“Bilicsi had only been given an undeservedly small role in the next show
[Uncle Bezzegh in State Department Store] and got into such a situation that
he left the theatre soon”.°°®
In addition to highlighting Feleki and Agärdy, reviewers only noted
that “the actors’ work is influenced and determined, even more than the
director’s, by the shortcomings of the libretto: the vagueness of the message
and the shifting from one genre to another"."? Therefore, other actors were
mentioned rather briefly. "Zsuzsa Petress, with a beautiful voice, played her
role charmingly and gracefully", "the two "positive" gods, old Kronos (Kálmán
Rózsahegyi) and young Cupid (Judit Hódossy) gave us pleasant moments",
"Lili Berky played very nicely in the role of a Ihracian mother who had lost
a son", "Ilona Kiss as swinging Venus and József Antalffy as roller skating
Mercury were amusing, but they had no revealing power either, and the fairly
interesting Pluto (Pál Homm) resembled a fascist only in a very indirect
way"."9 Even the premieres Orpheus, László Hadics was discussed only
in a nutshell: he "sang beautifully, but there was still a lot of rigidity and
embarrassment in his acting”.*"! The description of the progress in his acting,
parroted continuously, was also replaced by a doctrinaire question: “his
building a character is hindered by the dilemma: is Orpheus a hero fighting
for peace, or is he a dreamy pacifist?”*”
306 Ratonyi: Operett, Vol. 2, 289.
307 Cf. “And then [Istvan] Panczél from the Ministry said that an example had to be made, that
Bilicsi had to be punished. Unfortunately, Hamos was also to be blamed, since he had run up
to the headquarters of the party out of offended vanity [because he wrote the role for Bilicsi].
And I turned to the head of department at the Ministry, Istvan Kende [...]. He immediately
came to the theatre and said that everyone had the right to return a role, there was no way
someone should be fined for that, let’s give the role to another actor. That’s how Gabi Agardy
could play Jupiter. He had come from Miskolc and later signed with us.” Venczel: Viragkor,
Part 2, 39.
Ratonyi: Operett, Vol. 2, 289.
Antal: Orfeusz, 7.
310 Ibid.
31 Bacsó: Orfeusz, 5.
312 Antal: Orfeusz, 7.
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