The news comes fast on The VII. National Theatre Festival of Pécs. One of the main sources of news is the buffet for actors. In cases like this, it is open totally, the receptionist does not ask anybody where to go, so everybody can come in, they mingle with the actors, and the heavy chatting is going on until the dawn. We can learn that who, which performance has watched, what they think about it, they can be angry for some reason, and we can see people who are talking casually.

These kind of meetings are people spotting too. Someone can just come up to, we can watch someone in the auditorium, we can see whether they are in good or bad mood, but it can happen that we just run up with someone, then we sit in somewhere and talk for a long time.

On the POSZT the mood is a little bit more depressed than it used to be, there are too many talking about the lack of money of the meeting. And somehow we always talk about the fact that the fifty graduated actors from Budapest and Kapostvár only five has had a contract, of course, in some days more of them can get a job, but the tendency has never been so frightening than it is now.

It is a pleasure, that in spite of the uncertain future, there are many high-qualified exam performances. Puppet master students of the third grade form the University of Theatre and Film Art cooperated with the opera singer students of the Ferenc Liszt Academy of Music, and they mixed their genres with witty creativity to make an exciting performance. With Zoltán Balázs’ direction they perform The Mikado operetta by Arthur Sullivan-W.S.Gilbert with sarcastic humour. Eighteen of them are on the stage at the same time, nine puppet master and nine singer. The puppet actors are not hidden, it is also interesting as the react to the action of the figures, who they are moving, as the opera singers sometimes identify with the marionette to whom they give their voices, but sometimes they keep ironic distance of them. But during the play, according to the different situations, the characters form the most extraordinary shapes, sometimes they play and sing while they are rolling on one another. It is the least that they have to sing arias while laying on their back or standing on their arms. But does not a confusion come from all it, in most of the cases the settings are punctual. Sometimes it happens after a longer physical stress that some singers’ legs are still shaking for a long time, and sometimes the prose actions are not lively enough.

Anyway, the harmony is perfect. Judit Gombár’s puppets are wonderful, they can do even more, but the marionettes are one of the most complicated techniques of puppets, so obviously there are many things to learn. Meanwhile it is for sure that The Mikado is one of the best performances of the meeting, including the performances of competition too.

Gábro Bóta, Magyar Hírlap, 2007

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)