An Intro to Hungarian Theatre
Attila Szabó
With a population of just under 10 million and an area of 93 thousand square kilometres Hungary ranks among the small countries of Europe. Nonetheless, it can boast with a rich cultural life and theatre system, where yearly about five million theatre tickets are sold. Budapest, the bustling capital city stretching on both sides of the Danube, is also the prime hub of cultural life, giving space to roughly the half of all the theatres in the country. With its 1.7 million inhabitants it clearly dominates both the established and independent performing arts sector. There are 25 major theatres in Budapest, and about 100 independent/alternative theatre groups and 25 dance companies are also based in the capital.
Contemporary Polish performance scene
By Marcelina Obarska (translation Joanna Figiel)
The role of drama theatre in modern Poland cannot be stressed enough. It is not only the subject of debate focused on aesthetics, but also reflects ethical conflicts and resonates with social concerns, often arousing turbulent discussions and disputes. For some time now, the longstanding, dominant formula of theatre with a strong presence of the director-demiurge (typically male, less often female) has been giving way to an alternative vision of theatrical spectacle. (It is difficult to pinpoint a specific date, but one can consider the second decade of the twenty-first century as the period of significant change). Great masters of contemporary Polish theatre – Krystian Lupa and Krzysztof Warlikowski – remain faithful to their methods: by entering the discourse of outstanding masterpieces they create text-based epic performances with expressive parts and refer to the figures of History, Memory, and Identity. Many of the performances of directors such as Jan Klata, Maja Kleczewska or Grzegorz Jarzyna are also based on