10 lokakuuta 2011

Szentivánéji álom (A Midsummer Night's Dream) - Budapest, January 2009

The cast:

Oberon - Homonnay Zsolt
Titánia - Füredi Nikolett
Lysander - Dolhai Attila
Hermia - Vágó Zsuzsi
Demetrius - Bálint Ádám
Heléna - Peller Anna
Puck - Kerényi Miklós Máté
Theseus - Jantyik Csaba
Hippolyta - Csengeri Ottília
Zuboly - Bereczki Zoltán
Vackor - Csuha Lajos
Dudás - Sánta László

The basic Shakespeare story, with a mixture of every possible kind of music and some parody of the clichés of the Operettszínház musical productions.

The cast was great and can't find any complaints in any of them. I've never been a huge fan of Zsolt Homonnay, something in him has simply annoyed me, but now he really impressed me and acted and sang wonderfully. I'm a fan. Nikolett Füredi has to have one of the most beautiful voices in the city. Miklós Máté Kerényi was an adorable Puck and seemed to have fun with the role. It was also nice to see Attila Dolhai and Zsuzsi Vágó on stage, although the young couples were quite uninteresting as characters and could have done with some more changes to develop the characters. I liked Attila's big Greek-style solo, though I have no idea what it had to do with the story. I've seen László Sánta many times as Alfred in Tanz der Vampire and seeing him as Thisbe was priceless. He's got a pretty soprano. ;) And, well, Zoltán Bereczki tends to be great in everything he does. Even when dressed up as a donkey and having sex with Titania.

The musical must be partly written for the actors of the theatre. We cracked up when Attila sang something like "I want my face in posters on every wall", because when you walk out of the theatre, you can see him at least in five different huge musical posters on both sides of the street. Zoltán Bereczki's "death scene" as Pyramus consisted of several minutes of him hitting himself with his sword all over again and going "I'm dying. I'm dying. I'm dying.", which oddly reminded me of his death scene as Mercutio in Rómeó és Júlia a week earlier. At least these people know how to laugh at themselves. Oberon and Titania had a very Death&Elisabeth-ish feeling in them, which probably is even more visible with Szilveszter Szabó and Kata Janza in the roles.

The visual side of the production was awesome. I usually dislike Operettszínház's way of filling the stage with everything possible, but dream-like and weird sets and hordes of ensemble actually fitted the musical very well. Especially the fairies had amazing costumes and make-up. Photos.

In general the musical was... interesting. It's hard to describe as a whole because it feels like someone put the Operettszínház into a mixer and made a musical out of it, but despite some flails it was very funny and beautiful. And quite dirty, but I still don't know how Hungarians manage to do that with much better taste than for example Finns. About 2/3 of the music was quite boring and didn't stay in my memory even to the end of the song, but there were some really catchy and good pieces as well. Especially Puck and Oberon had some nice melodies. There was a bit too much ensemble scenes, and the role of Hippolyta felt like written because they wanted to show that Ottília Csengeri has breasts and can sing, in this order. There were details I didn't understand, like the flying skeletons in black robes (I won't say "Deaths" because in this context it usually means something else) during Puck's song, and the point of some songs was somewhat unclear, but with some development it could be very good. At least it was funny, people were dying of laughter especially during the play in the end.

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